Lights Will Guide You Home
by Maeve Morgan
Summary: ENDGAME SPOILERS! "Sometimes, the thing you've been looking for your whole life is right there beside you all along." On his journey back in time to take back the Infinity Stones, Steve thinks about his lifelong partnership with Natasha and what it means to go home. Fix-It fic. Romanogers.
1. Coming Home

**Disclaimer:** The Avengers, its characters and The Marvel Cinematic Universe belong to Marvel Studios and The Walt Disney Company, among many others. I'm only a fan, writing this for love of this film franchise and personal pleasure.

A.N.: Okay, so I knew that the moment I watched Avengers: Endgame I'd become obsessed with it (as I usually do with things I care way too much about), so now I've already watched it twice and spent over a week thinking about nothing but the movie and Romanogers and everyone is doing it, so this is my version of a Fix-It story, which almost turned into a study on why Nat is so awesome and of their story together through Steve's eyes.

* * *

**Lights Will Guide You Home**

_And the tears come streaming down your face  
When you lose something you can't replace  
When you love someone but it goes to waste  
Could it be worse?_

_Lights will guide you home  
And ignite your bones  
And I will try to fix you  
-Coldplay, "Fix You"_

* * *

Taking Mjolnir and the case containing the Infinity Stones, Steve Rogers stepped up to the platform of the time-traveling device they'd invented only a short while ago to embark on a journey that, as Banner explained, would take as long as he needed to restore the Stones back to the past, yet only five seconds of their time in the present. He was to travel alone, as he considered this his final mission to put it all back to its rightful time and place after everything the war had taken from them.

Both Bucky and Sam had offered to take the journey with him, as they would. If he followed the plan carefully, it would take a while but there shouldn't be a lot of problems with getting in and out of the different times and places, though there was always the chance the unpredictable would interfere with their plans. He was well aware of that, and for as much as having backup was always advisable, he wasn't willing to risk anyone else for this final task. He'd already lost too much.

Truth be told, there was also another reason he'd wanted to take this journey alone. Although both men were like brothers to him and he'd always trust them with his life, he felt like he'd lost his one true partner, the one who had been with him since he'd abruptly woken up after spending decades lost and frozen in the arctic ice, suddenly thrown into a new time, a new world where little made sense, everything was changed and everyone he'd known was gone.

Natasha Romanoff and the partnership they'd started tentatively and, really, out of necessity at the Battle of New York City against the Chitauri just a couple of weeks after he'd woken up in the 21st century had been one of the main things that had kept him sane in this new life─

"_You wanna get up there, you're gonna need a ride."_

"_I got a ride. I could use a boost though."_

"_You sure about this?"_

"_Yeah. It's gonna be fun."_

─Of course, when he'd officially started working with her at SHIELD he wasn't so sure about it at first, as he'd had to adjust to partnering up with someone who'd spent a lifetime working as a secretive, manipulative spy─

"_What's on it?"_

"_I don't know."_

"_Stop lying!"_

"_I only act like I know everything, Rogers."_

─but in time they both learned to open up, to share their truths, their fears and their regrets. They learned how to trust and even depend on one another─

"_Who do you want me to be?"_

"_How about a friend?"_

─and as she slowly tore away at the walls so carefully built around her in order to let him in, he was surprised to realize that he'd been building walls of his own─

"_If it was the other way around, and it was down to me to save your life, now, you be honest with me, would you trust me to do it?"_

"_I would now. And I'm always honest."_

─to protect himself, without conscious thought, in this strange new world, especially in dealing with so many secret agent types like Fury, Hill and Natasha, which was so different from his days back in the Army with Colonel Phillips and his squad of commandos.

When he'd met her, she had been so unlike all the women he'd ever known. Never mind the women from the 1940's, which was a given that she would be nothing like them, but she was so unlike even the women he'd seen walking around New York in this 21st century. Everything about her seemed to be about pulling you in yet keeping you out, an enchantress who would cast a spell on you and drag you to your knees while keeping you at arm's length, like an alluring, beautiful and deadly trap. So much like a spider's web from the real black widow.

He'd also been privately quite embarrassed when he'd first seen her battle uniforms, as he was definitely not used to women wearing such tight clothes back in the day. He'd even wondered at the practicality of wearing something like that, but that thought went out his head as soon as he saw her in action. Alluring, beautiful and deadly, indeed.

Working with the Black Widow was also a strange new experience as he'd never been in so close contact with a woman on a daily basis before. Even after the serum, becoming Captain America and fighting in WWII, he'd still been terrible at talking to women. At first he had no idea what to expect of working with her, but it wasn't long before he realized he felt as comfortable with her as if she were one of the guys. Right from the start she had loved to tease him mercilessly─

"_Hey, fellas. Either of you know where the Smithsonian is? I'm here to pick up a fossil."_

"_That's hilarious."_

─and it wasn't long before he learned to pay her back in kind and, after a few bumps in the road, they became real friends and partners. He found a side to her that existed under the armor of the Black Widow, the real Natasha Romanoff, who was warm, kind and soft while also remaining fiercely loyal and protective of the ones she loved.

The way they fought together during battles was also something else. Although they did have very different battle techniques, they seemed to complement each other and she also taught him some moves once they'd started training together. He was surprised with how easily and almost instinctively she'd learned to work with his shield, so their moves in the battlefield were at times like some synchronized dance choreography.

The time they spent together training the new recruits for the Avengers at the compound in upstate New York strengthened their bond like never before. He counted on her, his right hand, for everything, as his second in command, as the one whose opinion mattered the most to him, as the heart and soul of the team. Even when they disagreed about the whole Sokovia Accords debacle, they'd still managed to be there for one another─

"_I'm sorry, Nat. I can't sign it."_

"_I know."_

"_Well, then what are you doing here?"_

"_I didn't want you to be alone."_

─and respect each other in a manner that he and Tony never quite managed to achieve, at least not until recently. It had killed him to think he'd have to face her at the airport in Leipzig and even though he'd worried of what would happen to her, he was glad he never had to engage her in battle (one motive being that he knew she could kick his ass, if she so wanted to) and that she'd actually turned around and helped them get away.

He was also extremely grateful when she'd sought him out and together they managed to break out their imprisoned friends from The Raft. He would've eventually managed to do it on his own, of course, but her help made things go way faster and much easier. They spent nearly two years on the run, hiding away from the government yet trying to help other people along the way. It was a godsend that she'd joined them, as he doubted they would've been able to elude the authorities without engaging in unnecessary scuffles for so long if not for her knowledge and skills, since he and Sam had never been very good at laying low and there was only so much Wanda could do with her powers while she still needed to learn to control a few aspects of it, not to mention the times she'd sneak away to be with Vision.

And then New York had been suddenly attacked, Tony was rumored to have simply vanished in a spaceship and Steve's cell phone rang. Banner, of all people, was calling him for help. It was time to suit up and stop hiding and once more get into battle to protect their planet and loved ones. The battle had been brutal, their enemy seemingly unstoppable, even with unexpected and welcomed reinforcements in the form of Thor with a new hammer and more fighting companions.

And with a snap of the fingers and the following deafening silence the world had seemed to crumple around them.

What should have brought him and Natasha closer together only seemed to pull them apart for the past five years, as they simply couldn't move on. They'd tried, at first, clinging onto each other with a desperation born out of hopelessness. But his pain would resonate with her own and maintain this ongoing, never-ending cycle of something so bittersweet that hummed just beneath their skins, in their bloodstreams with every heartbeat. For the two of them, surviving had been a blessing and a curse all on its own. Unlike Tony and Pepper, they couldn't find solace and be grateful that they still had one another because they still felt all they'd lost, so fresh, so raw, every single day while they lived in that giant compound with the empty rooms of their missing comrades and with the incoming reports of Clint's vigilante acts all over the globe and the many crises they'd tried to solve as governments fell while rebel, opportunistic and oppressive forces rose and whole countries had to be rebuilt from scratch.

They'd tried to keep going, as best as they could. Natasha took it upon herself to run the Avengers Initiative with help from their friends on Earth and Rocket with Nebula and Danvers, mostly, liaising with other planets. Even though Tony said he didn't want anything to do with the Avengers anymore, he kept on funding them; his own way of trying to help while he and Pepper whisked off to their house in the country to raise their little girl and concentrate on the many other business aspects of Stark Industries and how they could help their scarred world. And Steve… well, he wasn't Captain America anymore. He would help with the operations, as Nat mostly stayed in HQ commanding everything while he would occasionally go out in the field. But he also chose to spend more time away, helping out at the VA in Brooklyn and doing things on his own, whatever he could do to keep himself occupied and trying to assuage his consciousness, thinking he was helping somehow.

On that fateful day, when he'd made his way through the compound and sought Nat out, Steve had been thinking on what it meant to move on. He'd come from a meeting at the VA where someone had shared a recent attempt at moving on by meeting someone new─

"_I keep telling everybody they should move on. Some do. But not us."_

─and as he sat across from her, talked to her and looked at her, thinking of how she'd managed to remain so strong and so broken at same time; how she refused to stop trying to help the world, still seeing red on her ledger even after so many years; how she'd taken the weight of the Avengers upon her shoulders when no one else, not even he would; how she never cut her hair, keeping the blonde from the days they'd been on the run under the violent red; how tears gathered in her green eyes as she talked about how she'd found her family in them and she was still trying to be better and…

He'd suddenly been filled with an almost overwhelming want, this need to just make her happy again. He'd been about to say they should give this a try, to see what moving on could mean for the two of them and maybe it wouldn't hurt so much if they could be there for each other, like they'd always done before and maybe even be so much more, together─

"_I think we both need to get a life."_

"_You first."_

─when suddenly Scott Lang appeared on their front door and the impossible didn't seem so impossible anymore.

They'd gone on this crazy, a-billion-to-one, last ditch attempt, whatever-it-takes Hail Mary of all Hail Marys, because it was the only thing they could ever do now. They owed it to the rest of the world and to the half that had been wiped out of their lives so suddenly. He remained optimistic to the end (at this point, it _really_ was like a character flaw) yet he didn't actually dare dream of what could happen if they managed to pull it off, but a part of him wanted to pick up on that conversation afterwards, when the possibility of seeing her happy again would be within reach of his hands─

"_See you in a minute."_

─and he didn't think it was possible that Fate would be so cruel to him yet again, but he might also be living proof of the old saying: Man Plans, and God Laughs. And now after everything they'd been through she was gone, too.

He really might just be the world's leading authority on waiting too fucking long. Loki's words also taunted him, an echo that had been resonating inside his head for too many years now. The man out of time; and the Asgardian deity had been spot on. He'd never fit in his time, whichever one he happened to be living in. He was either longing for a future that would never come or thinking of a past he had been robbed of, without ever fully realizing that the one time that really mattered was the present and what he did with his life _now_─

"_We have what we have when we have it."_

─and Natasha had told him that once, when he'd been wrecked by grief and a nearly unbearable sense of loss after Peggy's funeral, thinking of all the might-have-beens that filled his mind if he'd just managed to get back to her after the war─his _first_ war. And she'd been right, both Nat _and_ Peggy had been right; that was all any of them could hope for. Peggy had gone on to live her life after he'd gone down; she'd carried on, she'd helped to build SHIELD to try to protect the world, she fell in love, she got married, had kids and had truly lived. What right did he have to begrudge her that happiness and a life fulfilled? After all, that was all he'd ever wanted for her. And she'd been happy, even if he hadn't been by her side.

After The Snap and for the past five years, he'd been trying so damn hard to help people move on and do the same when in reality he hadn't really been doing it. Even before Thanos had come, he'd still been feeling like a man out of time.

It seemed like no matter how much he suffered, he never truly learned his lesson. For so long he'd just tried to do the right thing, be the right man─

"_Figured I'd wait."_

"_For what?"_

"_The right partner."_

─find the right partner. And it'd turned out he'd had her by his side for over the past decade now. But once more he'd only realized it when it was already too late.

He'd been thinking of all of this, memories of his moments with Natasha coming to him, unbidden, while he executed the plan carefully to return the Infinity Stones back to their previous places to avoid the creation of branches in the flow of time. He'd first returned the Time and Mind Stones to New York in 2012, with a little help from The Ancient One. Then he returned Thor's hammer and the Reality Stone to Asgard in 2013 before moving into space to Morag in 2014 to return the Power Stone. As he saved the Space Stone and the case for his last stop, now he'd come to Vormir, home of the Soul Stone, which was the farthest destination in his itinerary and the one he'd been dreading the most since he'd started on this journey. He didn't want to let it─to let _her_─go.

Vormir seemed like a barren planet, a desert landscape of sand dunes interspersed with sheets of water under a lilac sky and a seemingly perpetually eclipsed sun hanging low on the horizon. He'd first come upon somewhere on this desert at the foot of what looked like the highest mountain there. As he made his way up, the air got colder, thick dark clouds gathered above, concentrating over the twin towers that spiraled up to the heavens as snow coalesced and fell around him. He knew from what Clint had told him that he needed to get to the top of the mountain just under the towers.

As he finally approached it, a dark, cloaked figure floated out just before his eyes, almost as if it blended out of his very surroundings to greet him. He thought this would be the red, floating guy that Clint had mentioned, but the voice he heard then sent chills down his spine, as it was something that had been buried in the very recesses of his mind yet that still brought nightmares to him, a memory of a time he now likened to his distant past.

"_Ah_ my old friend, Captain America." The wind blew the hood of the cloak aside and as the light reached it he could see the glowing, skeleton face of the Red Skull.

"Aw, _Hell_ no!" Steve exclaimed, his jaw tightening up in tension and his grip on the case that carried the two remaining Infinity Stones turning his knuckles white. "You have got to be shitting me." He murmured, mostly to himself, as he stared up at his old nemesis.

"Welcome Steven, son of Sarah." The Red Skull floated down, seeming to touch the ground just before him as their eyes leveled on each other.

The polite, softly spoken greeting and mention of his mother only served to incense him further. "What the fuck are you doing here?" He demanded through gritted teeth.

"I am the guardian of the Soul Stone," the Red Skull proclaimed as calmly as before.

Steve let out a short bark of humorless laughter at this. "Of course," he said harshly, shaking his head slightly to himself. "How fitting that the keeper of the Soul Stone would be the ghost of a soulless monster."

The Red Skull merely narrowed his eyes at him and glanced at the case in his hand. "I see you have them both, the one who banished me and the one that binds me here."

Steve jutted his chin out in defiance at him, narrowing his own eyes back at him as he thought back on the words Clint had told them and how they'd needed to pay a price in order to get the Soul Stone. "Tell me what you told them," he commanded, keeping his tight grip on the case.

The cloaked figure paused for a moment before relaying his message. "To ensure that whoever possesses it understands its power, the Stone demands a sacrifice. In order to take the Stone you must lose that which you love," he said, gesturing out at the cliff on the edge of the mountain, staring out into the distance as he paused once more. "A soul for a soul."

"A soul for a soul?" Steve repeated, his mind working furiously as he thought on the implications of those words. "So what happens if I return the Soul Stone to this place now?"

The Red Skull tilted his head slightly to the side, his lips pursed as his narrowed eyes focused back at Steve's face, looking deep into his blue eyes. Something flickered in the Red Skull's yellowed eyes and Steve noticed it and knew what he needed to know, even though the floating creature hadn't said anything in reply.

"I want her back," he said, his voice growing stronger then. "That's the deal, right? A soul for soul? If I give the Soul Stone back to this place, then I want that which was taken from me, the one who sacrificed herself so that we could get this Stone. I want her back."

"That is not how this works," came the softly spoken response.

"Bullshit," he countered immediately. "You said it yourself. A soul for a soul. I want her back."

"That is impossible."

"I. Want. Her. Back."

They stood staring each other down, neither willing to give what the other wanted. A few moments passed as they remained in this stalemate until Steve let go of this as a thought distracted him in another direction.

"You said the Stone demands a sacrifice, so that whoever has it would understand its power," he said slowly, his eyes never leaving the Red Skull's face and watching attentively for any reaction. "What _exactly_ are the Soul Stone powers?"

The Red Skull seemed taken aback at this question. "You cannot hope to wield the power of an Infinity Stone."

"That's not what I asked," Steve countered firmly and he repeated himself. "What are the Soul Stone powers?"

The cloaked creature seemed to almost sigh exasperatedly before he said, "Whoever controls the Soul Stone can _potentially_ affect all living or dead souls."

"What else?" Steve asked, sensing there was something he wasn't telling him.

The Red Skull narrowed his eyes at him again. He'd forgotten just how insufferably stubborn Steve Rogers could be. "The Stone also houses the Soul World, the final resting place for all lost souls."

"And what constitutes a soul?" He asked as a new gleam could be seen in his blue eyes.

"Did you come here to have a philosophical and theological discussion with me, Captain Rogers?" The cloaked figure countered, his frustration showing in his voice and in the furrowing of his brow.

Steve heaved a quiet sigh of his own. "What I want to know is if a soul is something that every sentient being has."

They stood in silence once more, staring at each other until the Red Skull finally answered. "Yes." At this, Steve narrowed his eyes once more and a rueful, triumphant smile seemed to tug at the corners of his mouth. Seeing this, the Soul Stone's Guardian huffed in disbelief. "You cannot be serious that you'll attempt to wield an Infinity Stone."

"No," Steve replied, the gleam in his eyes becoming brighter with determination. "I'm going to use _two_ Infinity Stones."

"It will be your demise," came the prompt reply, just as he'd expected. "The power of these Stones is far too great for your meager hands."

"Maybe," he answered, one eyebrow flickering up momentarily. "But I'm willing to bet my life on this."

A few years ago, Steve would've promptly agreed to this assessment. Even with the super soldier serum, who was he to control power of such magnitude? He'd seen what using the gauntlet and all six Infinity Stones had done to Thanos and Banner even with the Hulk's powers, and how it had killed Tony. Yet he'd been able to wield Mjolnir, Thor's mighty hammer that should be out of reach of mere mortal hands. And Thor's brother Loki had been able to use both the Space and Mind Stones without coming to any harm, as did Dr. Stephen Strange with the Time Stone. Even if there was only the slightest chance that this would work, he had no other choice but to take it.

He'd said it before, and he'd say it again: Whatever it takes.

Carefully, he opened the case and reached in for the two remaining Infinity Stones he still carried, holding one in each hand. He closed his eyes, his fingers enclosing the Stones and he could feel the power they possessed, vibrating and humming against his skin, sending involuntary shivers down his spine. Then he concentrated on what he wanted the Stones to do.

_Please, bring them back._

Steve felt power like never before surging through his body. Not even taking Mjolnir and bringing forth lightning like the god of thunder had felt like this. His bones were on fire and his very soul seemed to sing as his skin glowed an intense blue that faded into orange at the edges of his body. There was a sudden flash of light on the stormy sky above, multi colored streaks that rippled and reached out across the universe, cutting across time and space, a force greater than nature shifting and changing the reality of what had been their existence until but a second before.

The lightning disappeared at the corners of sky on the horizon and as the glow receded Steve could feel his heartbeat slowing down and the power he'd wielded seemed to return to the Stones in his hands. As he opened his eyes, he could see the Red Skull had been regarding him with quite a shocked expression before he returned to his previous unfeeling mask.

"Very well." He merely said then with a slight nod of the head.

Steve raised an eyebrow at him. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"You shall get your wish, Captain Rogers," the creature replied evenly.

For a moment, Steve wondered if this was a trick, somehow, and if he was about to be attacked. As the Red Skull merely gestured at him as if to say, 'carry on', Steve returned the Space Stone to the case, sealing it shut carefully, before holding it tightly in his left hand as his right hand still held the Soul Stone.

"You may drop the Stone over the edge." He said, making a sweeping gesture at the cliff.

Steve once more narrowed his eyes at him. "How do I know you're not tricking me right now?"

"You don't," the Red Skull answered. "This would be your proverbial, ah, leap of faith."

Knowing he had no other choice, Steve approached the edge of the cliff and looked down for a moment. Opening his palm turned up, he looked at the Soul Stone one last time, before tilting his hand and watching it fall down the cliff, finally disappearing from sight. The clouds above him suddenly swirled and gathered, forming a tunnel of light above the twin towers as thunder crackled and sounded all around him. A great flash of light seemed to descend upon him, and it became so bright that he needed to close his eyes.

* * *

When he opened his eyes again, Steve realized he was lying down somewhere under the same lilac sky he had first seen when he arrived in Vormir, yet the thunderous clouds seemed now to be far away. He noticed how he seemed to be in a shallow pool of water, yet the feeling that came foremost to his mind was that there was something in his right hand. Not just something, but someone's hand was tightly grasped in his.

"Natasha!" He gasped, sitting up too quickly and going a little dizzy at the motion, but nothing else seemed to matter because lying down beside him was Natasha Romanoff, her red-blonde hair braided and she was dressed in the same suit as when they had first traveled back in time. "Oh my God, it worked. Nat!"

"What?" She furrowed her eyebrows even as Steve pulled her up to a sitting position. She finally opened her eyes and looked at him, alarm taking over her features. "Oh no, oh no. What happened? Why are you here?"

"I came to save you," he simply said, grinning like a fool at the sight of her.

"No, no, no!" Natasha continued to fret, growing anxious as she thought something must have gone wrong. "What did Clint do? I was supposed to be dead!"

"You were," Steve said, his voice growing serious and he talked quickly, trying to explain everything to her. "Nat, we did it. Thanks to you, we got all the Infinity Stones and we got everyone back and Thanos is gone. Now we just need to go back to our present."

"What? Are you serious? But then how─?" Her green eyes went wider still as she tried to make sense of his words.

"I'll explain later, I don't think we have a lot of time left. Here, let me put in the new time coordinates," he reached for her wrist, inputting the time he'd left his present plus five seconds in her time-traveling GPS, as Tony had called it.

He just had time to do this and was still smiling like an idiot at her when her time device activated itself and she vanished away.

"Okay, one last stop," he whispered to himself and punched in the time for his last destination to take back the Space Stone to 1970, then he also vanished away from Vormir.

* * *

"Five, four, three, two, one…"

Banner, Bucky and Sam had been standing by the platform, counting down as Steve had just vanished from their sight and anxiously waiting for his return. There was a sudden blinding flash of light and a sound of thunder on an otherwise clear blue sky and when they recovered their sight, the three men noticed that there wasn't only Steve on top of the platform, yet two people on it and two more people sprawled on the ground before them.

"What the hell?!" Sam was the first to recover his voice and express any reaction to what was happening before their eyes.

Standing on the platform was Steve, as they'd expected, yet he had his arms in a tight embrace around a shocked Natasha. Lying on the ground and staring dazedly up at the sky was Tony Stark and the human guise once worn by Vision.

"It worked," Steve laughed, still clutching Natasha to his chest, and then he actually lifted her up in his arms and twirled her around once. "It really worked!" Then he released her and jumped down from the platform, his hands reaching out to Tony to pull him up to his feet.

"What the hell did you do?" Banner questioned, his eyes wide as he looked at the three people that should not have been there with them.

"I used the Soul Stone to bring them back," Steve explained, now reaching out to Vision and bringing him to his feet.

"What?" Bucky raised an eyebrow at him.

"How? I mean, _how_?" Sam asked, still uncomprehending.

"I just tried it," Steve answered with a simple shrug, as if the whole matter had been as simple as that. "I got to Vormir and I got to thinking, what exactly were the Soul Stone's powers? So before putting it back, I tried using the Stone to get everyone we'd lost back to life."

"But that doesn't make any sense," Banner protested with a frown as he came down from the platform to join them at the ground level. "I tried to bring Natasha back when I undid the Snap, but I couldn't do it."

"That's because she didn't just die, her soul was trapped inside the Stone," Steve explained it. "So when I put it back to its original place, I traded it back for her. You know, a soul for a soul."

"You did all that without knowing if that wouldn't kill you in the process?" Natasha lifted her eyebrows in surprise at hearing this, as she also jumped down to the ground to stand next to him.

"The thought did cross my mind, but I didn't think too much about it." Steve admitted with a quiet smile.

"And there goes the stupid," Bucky smiled, gently shaking his head at what he knew would've been his answer.

"Are you insane?" Tony asked then, a rather furious expression on his face as he rounded up on Steve with a finger pointed accusingly at his chest. "You have no idea how you could've monumentally messed things up. What if you'd brought us back to life back in 2014? You could've altered the flow of time!"

"Hey, I was very careful and specific about what I wanted," Steve countered with a raised eyebrow and crossed arms over his chest. "If you got back to life exactly the same time as I got back in time from taking the Stones to the past then there shouldn't be any problem as I wouldn't be altering anyone's past. I thought you would be glad I brought you back, Tony!" He furrowed his eyebrows softly at him.

"I am glad, _believe me_, I am," Tony lifted his hands in a conceding gesture, as his furious expression melted into a mellowed frown. "But I'm still so, so confused. How is _Vision_ here?" He gestured with a hand at the android disguised as a human, who just stood there quietly with them during this whole thing.

"He is a sentient being, therefore he has a soul," Steve explained with a nod of his head. "His body and systems had been recovered in Wakanda by Shuri's team, so he could be brought back to life as well."

"But didn't he need the Mind Stone to well, you know, _exist_?" Sam asked then with a bewildered gesture of the hands. Wasn't that why they'd gone through the whole battle back in Wakanda?

"Not after Shuri's team modified his synaptic connections," Steve carried on with his explanations. "They did that back when we were still thinking we could've recovered the Infinity Stones from Thanos right after the Snap. So when I used the Soul Stone, I also used the Space Stone to get Vision's and Tony's bodies back to this location."

"You used _two_ Infinity Stones at same time?" Natasha asked, her eyebrows once more nearly reaching her hairline and her voice going up an octave.

"My _God_, you're an idiot," Tony declared, just barely resisting the urge to roll his eyes at his friend.

"Or you might be the luckiest son of a bitch ever," Banner said, pushing his glasses back up his nose.

"I figured the universe owed me some luck back, you know," Steve said, with a casual shrug and a rather foolish grin. "Trapped in the ice for nearly seventy years and all of that."

Suddenly Vision moved for the first time since Steve had pulled him up to his feet after he'd suddenly appeared at the clearing in the woods by the Avengers compound, which was undergoing a massive and complete reconstruction after being utterly destroyed in the battle. All the others stopped and watched as he stood before Steve, and the next moment he reached out and enveloped his form in a fierce hug.

"Thank you, Captain Rogers," Vision said, his voice thick with emotion.

Steve smiled and patted him on the back. "You're welcome, Vision."

It was the push they had all needed to get past the arguments and start joining in the celebratory hugs. A while later, they were all gathered at Tony's country house. Pepper had nearly had a heart attack when she'd seen him descend the ramp of the Quinjet, but then she recovered and ran towards him, throwing her arms around him and hitting him on the back as she cried and told him this was it, he was done, no more pulling any crap on her. Tony simply smiled as tears also ran down his face and he agreed with every single word out of her mouth. Then Morgan also ran out and reached them, and they both knelt down and hugged their daughter fiercely while Rhodey and Happy stood around them in a little cocoon of happiness.

Soon others joined them in this impromptu celebration. Clint came on another Quinjet with his whole family and Wanda, who had been staying with them after Tony's funeral. The Barton kids latched themselves onto their aunt Natasha while she and Clint could only look at each other with tears in their eyes. With one arm around Laura and his throat tight with emotion, he could only nod at her and Natasha nodded back at him, one of her arms around Lila and the other over Cooper, little Nate grabbing at her legs. For now, they didn't need any words to express what they meant to each other.

Impatient to even walk, Wanda lifted herself in the air with her powers and landed gently in front of Vision, her eyes wide and her hands tentative as she touched his face delicately. He covered her hands with his own and slid one of her palms to his mouth in order to place a kiss on it, and then she threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly to her, tears streaming down her face and an impossibly bright smile taking over her lips.

A while later, Peter Parker arrived with his aunt May and the kid couldn't stop crying and laughing and hugging Tony as he blabbed on about anything and everything and they all laughed and cried with him and the house looked so alive that it was almost impossible to think a funeral had taken place a short while ago.

So many people had come and hugged Steve for this incredible and wonderful surprise that he'd pulled on everyone, it was a while before Bucky was able to sidle up to his best and oldest friend for a more private word. Steve was standing by the kitchen counter with a beer in hand and Bucky stood next to him with a bottle of his own.

"I must be losing my touch," Bucky said then in a would-be-casual tone. "When you hugged me before going back in time with the Stones I was pretty sure you were going to pull out quite a different surprise."

Steve glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, a smile tugging at his lips as he thought about Bucky's whispered words on how he'd miss him. "To be honest, I think I was," Steve admitted softly then. "I was thinking about going back and staying in the past. Finding Peggy, living the life I missed all those years ago. But then I found the Red Skull in Vormir and thought how I didn't want to live in the past anymore, you know? I wanted to be here, in the future, with everyone I love and this life we all got to build together..." He trailed off, as his eyes sought out all the people around them. He looked at Tony, so impossibly happy to be with his family once more, at Vision and Wanda, who were off on one corner of the couch all on a world of their own yet sharing in everything with their friends, at Natasha who was talking and laughing with Laura and Clint and the kids.

"I'm glad you came back, punk," Bucky said, punching him lightly on the arm as he smiled at him.

"Me, too," Steve smiled back and clinked their bottles together before taking a sip of his beer.

Hours later, night had fallen and Steve had been sitting alone outside on the porch steps overlooking the lake when he heard the door open and shut behind him.

"Hey, there you are," Natasha said and walked out to join him, sitting down next to him and hugging her knees up to her chest. "I've been looking all over for you."

"Oh yeah?" He asked quietly, turning to her with a smile.

She just looked at him for a moment, her green eyes taking in his features and finally concentrating back on his blue eyes. "I don't think I got to actually thank you yet, for what you did."

"You would've done the same thing," he said dismissively with a slight shake of the head.

"Still," she shrugged her shoulders quietly as she reached down and took his right hand in her left one. "Thank you, Steve."

He squeezed her hand lightly in response as they just kept smiling at each other. After a moment, she let out a quiet laugh and said, "I can't believe you managed to use two Infinity Stones on your own. And what's this I hear about you using Thor's hammer? I wonder what finally made you worthy." She raised an eyebrow at him in a teasing tone.

"I did it for you," he said softly, the words escaping out of his lips before he could really think about them. Her eyes widened a little at this and he continued talking before she could say anything in reply. "I did it all for you. When we were fighting Thanos, I just couldn't let him win while thinking you'd sacrificed yourself so that we could do this. I thought of you and then the hammer was just flying to my hand."

"Steve…" She could only whisper back at him, tears gathering in her eyes as she kept staring at him.

"And I couldn't see myself living in any version of a future without you in it, Nat," he told her. "You're my partner." He abruptly stopped talking, swallowing hard as his throat constricted with too many emotions.

"I know," she smiled at him, blinking her eyes and trying to keep the tears from spilling over.

"I love you, you know? I think I'm _in love_ with you," Steve said then, the words coming out of his mouth as he was afraid he'd never say this if he stopped talking now. "I don't know when it happened. Maybe I've always been in love with you and I was just afraid to admit it."

For a moment they could only stare at each other as the words he said almost hovered over them like a physical presence. Then she leaned forward, her free hand going up to caress his cheek as their noses touched and their eyes closed, their lips meeting in a kiss that was meant to be soft and gentle, yet at the first contact they both felt a spark that fueled some previously unknown desire deep in their guts. He pulled at her waist to get her closer to him and his other hand weaved gently through her hair and she relished at his touch, biting his lower lip and deepening the kiss as her hand clung to his shirt as if her life depended on it.

"Okay, wait," she broke the kiss, pressing their foreheads together as she kept her eyes closed and struggled to put some order in her thoughts. "Let's not get carried away here. You literally just brought me back from the dead and all." She took a deep breath in and out, and he did the same. "Are you sure about this?"

"Yes," he told her firmly and without hesitation, his voice leaving no room for argument. He pulled away a little to look at her and noticing her still unconvinced frown between her eyebrows, he said, "Nat, I was going to ask you out on a date before Scott showed up at the front door of the compound and we got into all of that mess."

"You were?" Her eyes sparkled at him as a smile tugged at her lips.

"Yeah," he laughed a little, suddenly feeling giddy that he was actually having this conversation with her. "What would you have said?"

"Depends," she smirked that little smirk of hers at him. "Where would you take me?"

"Anywhere you'd like," he said, grinning like an idiot back at her. "I have a few places in mind, but I'm not sure any of them are open right now."

"You can take me some other time," she said, her smirk melting into a gentle smile. "Right now, there's nowhere else I'd rather be."

He smiled at her, leaning forward once more to capture her lips with his own. As she snaked her arms around his neck and ran her fingers through his hair, she decided to amend that statement. "Actually, you _could_ take me back to your place in Brooklyn," she said, murmuring the words against his lips, not quite breaking their kiss.

"Humm, that's a good idea," he said, also murmuring against her lips. "It looks like you'll be out of a home for a while until the Avengers compound is reconstructed."

She murmured her agreement and then got back to kissing him until they were both quite breathless. "Steve?" She said, pausing for a moment to catch her breath. "I love you, too."

He smiled and perhaps for the first time in his life Steve Rogers felt like he was truly home.

* * *

A.N.: I know we're supposed to be happy that Steve got his happily ever after with Peggy, but blame it on my heart being set on Romanogers (CA:TWS _was_ the first movie of the franchise I ever watched, so I never got over their chemistry and how they were just perfect together) and in my opinion that was just a cop out; I felt cheated that he would go through everything in the past decade just to get a do-over and forget about everything else, leaving Bucky and Sam and the others in the future and potentially jeopardizing the timelines by interfering with the past (why do they create some time travel logic only to completely disregard it at the end?). Don't even get me started on Nat, her sacrificial death (which, okay, was awesome in its own way, but I was heartbroken), the nonsensical/botched romance with Banner and how the whole franchise was so unfair in their treatment of her (I'm still waiting for my Black Widow solo movie, you bastards!).

Anyway, sorry for the long-winded author's notes, but I just had to get this off my chest. I still think Endgame was an amazingly epic final chapter to a most wonderful adventure and I understand the value and reasons why things ended the way they did; but at same time I was so pissed off and I just couldn't help myself and I had to write this. Hopefully other Romanogers/Black Widow supporters out there found some solace in this little fanfiction of mine, as I've found in some out there.


	2. Her Place in the World

**Disclaimer:** The Avengers, its characters and The Marvel Cinematic Universe belong to Marvel Studios and The Walt Disney Company, among many others. I'm only a fan, writing this for love of this film franchise and personal pleasure.

A.N.: I was so not planning on continuing this, but once again I just couldn't stop myself. It seemed only fair to give Natasha her side of the story. The first verse of the song was also surprisingly apt for Natasha throughout the movies and in Endgame.

* * *

**Lights Will Guide You Home**

_When you try your best but you don't succeed  
When you get what you want but not what you need  
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep  
Stuck in reverse  
-Coldplay, "Fix You"_

* * *

"A long way from Budapest."

Natasha smiled then looked away to avoid Clint's eyes. She was glad he was excited with their trip into space and somewhat preoccupied with the ship's dashboard; even if Nebula had set the course straight to Vormir they were both pilots and it was hard to ignore the instinct they had whenever they were flying somewhere of keeping eyes open and taking note of any and all possible threats. Even with the Quinjets autopilot functions and stealth modes available to them, they never lost the habit. In their line of work, it paid to be extra cautious or the cost could be their lives.

Not that it mattered to her now, since Natasha Romanoff had basically embarked on a suicide mission.

Oh she was sure of that and she knew what she was doing. The moment she'd heard Nebula talking with all her gravitas about Vormir, calling it a dominion of death at the very center of celestial existence she'd felt a chill run down her spine and had looked up from her notepad as she thought about the resting place of the Soul Stone. Something about that place and the way she talked about it seemed graver than any of the other Infinity Stones and what they would need to do to obtain it. So when they'd been taking a break in strategizing and the boys had left to grab some food in the kitchen, she'd pulled the cyborg woman aside and asked her more details about this place and the Soul Stone.

"My father murdered my sister in Vormir, but he'd also mourned her," Nebula had said, her dark eyes pulling her in, like staring into the abyss. "He said he had to kill her. I suspect that was his price in order to get the Soul Stone."

"Can I ask you a favor?" Natasha had asked her quietly, furrowing the space between her eyebrows in thought. "Don't tell this to anyone else."

"Alright," the robotic woman agreed simply with a nod. "But Tony should know this already."

"It's okay, I can handle Tony," Natasha replied, her lips pressed into a serious line as she started formulating a plan in her head. If she kept his focus on the other Infinity Stones and on the mission, it might be possible that he would gloss over his memory of the implications needed to retrieve the Soul Stone. If she could keep him occupied with working with Steve then that would also be a welcomed distraction in her favor. She knew this would be just what they needed to finally mend their relationship for good, as well.

Natasha was a master manipulator, the Red Room had taught her well. So once she had figured out that there were three Infinity Stones in New York City in 2012 during the battle against Loki and the Chitauri and they'd started dividing up the teams to collect the Stones back in time, she'd just needed to make sure she and Clint were the ones going to Vormir. It pained her more than she could think, but it had to be Clint. Of the other members of the Avengers, he was the one she knew she could take down, if it came to that (and with his stubbornness, she had a feeling it would). As they were arranging to first go to Morag for the Power Stone and a separate team would need to take the ship to head to Vormir, she'd volunteered herself and Clint. Even though they didn't have experience roaming space, they were pilots and more than capable to handle a retrieval mission where there were supposedly no obstacles in their way, unlike all the other places where they were bound to run into other people and possible complications.

Nebula seemed to understand what was her goal, as she agreed to this proposition and said she should be the one retrieving the Power Stone in Morag, as it would be encased in a powerful field and only someone with her robotics augmentations should be able to handle that. Rhodey then volunteered to go with her, as his suit could also come in handy in this situation. After that, everyone else got sorted for their separate missions, fitting into their places like a glove.

She didn't really want to die, but if such a sacrifice really was needed to get it all back, to undo all the loss and the pain they'd had to live with for the past five years, then she should be the one to do it. She'd been on her mission of redemption, trying to get the red off her ledger ever since Clint had given her a second chance and she'd defected from the KGB to SHIELD. If this should be her final act, then she would gladly do it.

When she'd first started doing this job, she couldn't see herself trusting anyone other than Clint, and maybe Coulson and Fury. Truth and trust were not words she was accustomed to using. Her whole life had been about deception, manipulation, power and control. Tony had had a field day with her way back then.

"_Boy, you're good. You're mind-blowingly duplicitous. How do you do it? You just tear things a─yo-you're a triple impostor! I've never seen anything like it. Is there anything real about you? Do you even speak Latin?"_

"_Fallaces sunt rerum specias."_

The appearance of things can be deceptive, indeed. And for a long while that was still how she lived. Operationally speaking, working for SHIELD wasn't that different from the work she did before, but at least now she was doing something good with her skills. And then she'd started meeting these people. Letting people in meant that she would be vulnerable, so it really wasn't something she welcomed in her life. Being alive had been more important than that. And yet…

"_The truth is a matter of circumstance. It's not all things to all people all the time. Neither am I."_

"_That's a tough way to live."_

"_It's a good way not to die, though."_

"_You know, it's kind of hard to trust someone when you don't know who that someone really is."_

"_Yeah… Who do you want me to be?"_

"_How about a friend?"_

Damn Steve Rogers and the way he'd carved his way into her life and her heart. After Clint, he'd been the first to crack that chink in her armor, asking her to be his friend and telling her he'd trust her with his life. This was Captain America! She'd been created and trained as the Black Widow to be the exact antithesis of him. He was good and trust and honesty personified. She… was not any of that. He was blue, she was red. Yet he'd extended her a hand in friendship and partnership and she would've been a fool not to take it. So she'd let him in and she would forever strive to be better and worthy of his trust.

She knew they'd had a connection there. The way Steve had looked at her at the cemetery, when she'd said she wasn't going with Fury but she also wouldn't stay with him, it had been… disconcerting. She'd let him in and would be his friend, like he'd asked, but she couldn't risk anything more. And with the end of SHIELD and the whole world knowing who she really was, she'd felt too vulnerable, too exposed.

"_I blew all my covers. I gotta go figure out a new one."_

"_That might take a while."_

"_I'm counting on it."_

She didn't want to know if Steve would see her differently once he found out her truths. Her past was bound to catch up to her somewhere down the line and it wasn't fair to him. So she'd kissed him goodbye and left him, at least for the moment.

"_Be careful, Steve. You might not want to pull on that thread."_

She'd said that about his search for Bucky, but she'd also been talking about something else. Something she wouldn't name and would never discuss with him, if she could avoid it. But it'd been a warning and a request, along with the previous one she'd said just moments before, asking him to call Sharon. She was nice, she would be good for him and he deserved to have a real shot at his new life, with someone who wasn't so complicated or a complete mess like her.

And that had been the start of everything. The fact that Fury had not so subtly told her that he hadn't trusted her after the attempt on his life back in DC also got her thinking she had some serious reevaluations to make on her life and how she did things. For as much as she hated to depend on others, she couldn't live an isolated life. The time she spent with Clint and Laura as she waited for that whole mess with HYDRA and her secrets plastered all over the web to blow over also showed her how wonderful it could be to have a family. Their kids were amazing and Clint had never looked more at home than at the ranch.

Even if she could never experience motherhood and a family in the traditional sense─

"_In the Red Room, where I was trained, where I was raised, they have a graduation ceremony. They sterilize you."_

─she'd thought she could have _something_. When she'd started working with Bruce on the lullaby to help control the Hulk when he was needed on missions, she'd noticed the way he looked at her. She'd felt there was something there. He seemed to listen to her, even as the Hulk. She felt attracted to him and somehow getting closer to him hadn't seemed as intimidating and impossible. Bruce literally knew what it was like to have the world look at you in horror at what you'd done. He'd needed to run and hide and she'd wanted to run with it. _This_ was her chance. They could go and they could be together and then, who knows? But then the sky had been falling down on them and Ultron had been so close to ending everything, how could she have turned her back on that?

"_You're a spy, not a soldier. Now you want to wade into a war. Why?"_

Clint had asked her that, the first time she'd decided to get involved in an impossible war that by all rights had nothing to do with them and was way out of their league.

"_This is monsters and magic and nothing we were ever trained for."_

They'd been right talking that time, she was a spy, she'd never meant to get involved in any war. That should be left to someone else's hands, more capable hands. _Hero's_ hands: Tony, Steve, Thor. But she had so much _red_, on her ledger, on her hands, and if she did this, if she could help out just a little…

"_I had this dream. The kind that seems normal at the time. But when you wake…"_

"_What did you dream?"_

"_That I was an Avenger. That I was anything more than the assassin they made me."_

And it had been a beautiful dream. More than a dream, it'd been her _life_. Once she stepped up and became an Avenger, she couldn't go back. This was her fight now. So she'd stayed and she'd fought and by choosing the Avengers she'd lost Bruce. It had hurt, knowing she'd hurt him by needing The Other Guy more than she'd wanted him, that he wouldn't come back for her and anything they could've had was long gone before it'd even started.

Natasha had then thrown herself into her work, spending her days side by side with Steve once more, leading a new team. And without realizing she'd somehow built this family of lost souls around her. By losing what she'd thought she wanted she got exactly what she needed. She'd had Clint and Laura and their kids who called her Auntie Nat. She'd had Steve and Tony and Thor, when he'd come by. She'd had Wanda, who'd become like a friend, little sister and protege all rolled into one during that time. She'd had Sam, Vision, Rhodey and everyone else that had come together in this little band of heroes. They'd tried so damn hard to do good and to protect everyone, to keep everyone together, to keep the rest of the world safe.

Then mistakes were made, as they would, and the Accords had come. She'd tried like hell to keep her family together, to be the bridge between Tony and Steve and their different points of view and stubborn asses. And the tragic thing was, they were both right. They needed to be put in check, they'd needed oversight. But after learning HYDRA had been secretly leading SHIELD from the start they didn't exactly get any sense of security from a UN controlled panel. They could be used as weapons for the wrong people, and no one knew that better than Natasha Romanoff. But she also knew trust didn't come easily and it went both ways; the world didn't trust them anymore, so they needed to rebuild it. If they didn't sign the Accords, they wouldn't be permitted to act at all, and she had not a doubt in her mind that Secretary Ross would brand them criminals and throw them in jail if they tried to do so.

"_Staying together is more important than __**how**__ we stay together."_

"_What are we giving up to do it?"_

Too many things had happened at the same time, and she couldn't keep them together. She'd tried, even if she knew she wouldn't be able to change his mind. Time and time again, she tried, but her family had still actually come to blows, Tony and Steve parting ways with their fists and tearing everything apart in their way. She'd faced off against Clint like it was just another day, yet she couldn't bring herself to go up against Steve─

"_You're not gonna stop."_

"_You know I can't."_

─he'd trusted her with his life all those years ago in DC. She was still bound to that, and deep down she knew he was right, so she let him go. Still she'd tried, with Tony as well─

"_We played this wrong."_

"_Boy, it must be hard to shake the double-agent thing, huh. Sticks to the DNA."_

"_Are you incapable of letting go of your ego for one goddamn second?"_

"_T'Challa told Ross what you did, so they're coming for you."_

"_I'm not the one who needs to watch their back."_

─but she'd found herself on the wrong side of the law and on the run once more. She tried to salvage what she could, finding Steve and breaking out their friends from prison. Those had been darker days, but it wasn't anything she wasn't accustomed to, either. They'd kept together with Sam and Wanda, recovering at least part of her family and doing whatever they could in their way to keep the world safe. A drug-lord here, a human trafficking ring there, a weapons smuggler or a terrorist cell elsewhere.

They'd spent two years like this until one day the phone that Steve carried with him everywhere was suddenly ringing. He'd never lost hope that one day Tony would call, so it was jarring to find Bruce Banner on the other end of the line even as they saw breaking news on TV that New York City had suffered from another alien attack and Iron Man was rumored to have vanished in a spaceship.

So they had suited up, saved Vision and Wanda and they barely had enough time to get everyone together after all that time when with a brutal battle and a snap of the fingers half her family was suddenly gone.

Half the world─no, half the _universe_ was gone. She lost her friends, the only family she'd ever known in her entire life. Fury and Hill were gone, too, and while tracking them down she'd found a modified pager by their vehicle in Dallas, which led to the sudden appearance in their lives of one Carol Danvers. As she brought Tony back to them and seemed to infuse the team with renewed energy, Natasha kept on hoping they would still be able to reverse this nightmare and bring everyone back.

"_This is gonna work, Steve."_

"_I know it will. 'Cause I don't know what I'm gonna do if it doesn't."_

It turned out they were both liars, as their plan didn't work. At all. All they had to show for it was the decapitated corpse of a mad titan who had wiped out half of the universe. They'd trudged back to Earth, broken and defeated, without any clue on how to carry on with their lives.

Natasha kept on Avenging, trying to keep the world from collapsing. She'd appointed herself the new Director of the Avengers Initiative and set up a command center coordinating efforts between their allies on Earth and in space. It was the only life she knew how to live anymore. She had to take all the guilt and the sadness she felt and try to make something good out of it.

Most of her friends that were still alive helped her, but Tony maintained he was truly done. Especially when they found out Pepper was pregnant, he built them a house in the country and said he would be a stay-at-home dad, taking care of their little girl while Pepper still ran Stark Industries and their many business interests, especially in clean energy, as it was something the world desperately needed in these times of crisis. He kept funding the Avengers, though, as an olive branch to her.

Clint had too much anger in him to be by her side. He'd lost Laura and the kids and part of his sanity with them. His own idea of helping the world seemed to be by wiping out dangerous people, the evil ones that had been left among the living, by any means necessary. They'd get reports of his vigilante acts all over the world, but it was hard to keep up with him. The few times they'd met in person she also had no idea how to appease his troubled soul.

And Steve… He'd tried to be there with her, by her side, the two of them running the Avengers once more. But after a while, he chose to move out of the compound, found himself a place in Brooklyn where he was trying to adjust to this new world, all over again. He started working at the VA, as Sam had done so many years before. He still visited her and helped her out with a mission here or there, if she would ask him, but she tried not to ask him too much. It didn't seem to be fair to ask him to sacrifice his life for a cause he didn't believe in anymore.

"_You know, I'd offer to cook you dinner, but you seem pretty miserable already."_

She'd smiled wanly at his efforts to cheer her up. Steve really wasn't much of a cook; in their days in hideout that was usually left for her or Sam. Natasha knew how to cook wonderfully, actually. Some of her undercover assignments had required it, way back in the day. She just didn't make the effort for any elaborate meals anymore. Some days a peanut butter and jelly sandwich was all she could muster now.

"_Are you here to do your laundry?"_

"_And to see a friend."_

She eased into joking with him, the two of them communicating in their own wavelength practically since they'd first met. She'd tease him and he would look at her with his concerned, soulful eyes. He had moved out a long time ago, but he still came every now and then, to check on her and keep her company. Sometimes, like that night, he'd talk about moving on.

"_If I move on, who does this?"_

"_Maybe it doesn't need to be done."_

It was hard, seeing him like this. Steve had always been the one she could count on to keep up the faith and the optimism. Even in their days after the Accords and being on the run, he'd always tried to fight the good fight, to do the right thing and keep the world spinning. She'd needed him by her side, so much, but she didn't want to keep him there if that wasn't what he wanted anymore. But to her there was no alternative. This was the only place for her.

"_I used to have nothing. And then I got this. This job, this __**family**__. And I was─I was better because of it. And even though they're gone, I'm still trying to be better."_

And then the world had tilted on its axis once more, a new hope coming into their lives along Scott Lang suddenly banging on the front gate. It had taken a while and convincing many of their broken friends dealing with varying degrees of reluctance to embark on this journey, but at last they'd come up with a plan that had seemed feasible enough. They were on their way to save the world once more.

"_Five years ago, we lost. All of us. We lost friends, we lost family, we lost part of ourselves. Today we have a chance to take it all back. You know your teams, you know your missions. Get the Stones, get them back. One round-trip each, no mistakes. No do-overs. Most of us are going somewhere we know. That doesn't mean we should know what to expect. Be careful. Look out for each other. This is the fight of our lives. And we're gonna win. Whatever it takes. Good luck."_

Natasha would never tell him this, but she secretly loved Steve's speeches. Most of the time, she would actually tease him about it, but hearing him say these words in his gravely Captain America voice once more, it had brought so much joy to her heart. Not so long ago, she'd thought she would never get to see him with this fire alive in his eyes once more, and now here he was.

"_See you in a minute."_

She hadn't meant her last words to him to be a lie, but she couldn't help herself, especially after his speech. And really, what was a minute for someone about to embark on a time-traveling mission to bring the world back to life? She'd never been religious, she was actually quite the atheist. But after running around with Steve for the past decade, she'd started to want to believe in an afterlife. And she hoped that wherever she might end up she would get the chance to see him again.

Then suddenly she was in Vormir with Clint, being told by a strangely familiar red skeletal face that in order to get the Soul Stone they had to lose what they loved in an everlasting exchange.

"A soul for a soul."

As she'd thought, Clint refused to believe this was the only way, but she'd already figured that out a long time ago. So she talked him through it, about how Thanos had come to this place with his daughter and left with the Soul Stone, but not with Gamora. It was the only way.

"Whatever it takes." She'd whispered, her eyes far away.

"Whatever it takes." He'd agreed, looking out at the cliff.

She couldn't hope he would make things any easy for her. She knew he'd be a stubborn ass and that he'd want to sacrifice himself for the cause. She couldn't let him go through with that.

"I'm starting to think we mean different people here, Natasha."

"For the last five years, I've been trying to do one thing, get to right here. That's all it's been about: Bringing everybody back." Ever since their defeat, she'd been stuck in the same place, hoping against hope that there was some way to undo the unthinkable and that the world could be brought back. That her family would be well and alive and that especially Clint would get to see Laura and the kids again and regain that piece of his soul that had gone with them.

"Tell my family I love them."

"You tell them yourself."

They'd fought against each other for the right to sacrifice themselves for it all. She'd looked at him right in the eye as he jumped over the cliff, but she would not let him do this to her. She jumped after him, taking one of his grappling hooks connected to his gear and shooting it up, so that he was hanging by the side of the cliff.

"Damn you!"

"Let me go."

"No. Please, no."

"It's okay…"

"Please…"

Natasha smiled at him and pushed off the cliff, the momentum forcing Clint to lose the hold he'd had on her wrist. As she fell down to her certain death, she closed her eyes and thought of another time she'd contemplated her death. Surely, every time she went out on a mission she knew it could be her last, and over the past few years the battles they'd faced had become more and more ferocious. Still, she'd always counted on her abilities and on her friends to see them through to the end. Until now. And that one specific moment years before when she'd also been close to contemplating the end of her life came to mind then…

"_Cap, these people are going nowhere. If Stark finds a way to blow this rock─"_

"_Not till everyone is safe."_

"_Everyone up here versus everyone down there? There's no math there."_

"_I'm not leaving this place with one civilian on it."_

"_I didn't say we should leave... There's worse ways to go. Where else am I gonna get a view like this?"_

It had been a beautiful view, yet Steve had only looked at her. Damn, she wished she'd told him…

* * *

Natasha opened her eyes, and realized she was standing in what looked like a corridor, some sort of walkway with dark paneled walls and floor, metal and clear glass railings around her. There was a crystalline layer of water on the floor, under her boots. Big floor to ceiling windows were to her left and outside a bright orange sky gave everything around her a hazy glow.

"Natasha?"

She heard his voice, and when she turned around she saw he was standing on what looked like the exit of where she was standing to another area, yet it just seemed to lead to a vast, empty space, stretching out infinitely into nothingness in that orange haze. As she looked at Bruce's face─his _real_ face, not the face of the Hulk─she suddenly recognized where they were standing: On the walkway connecting several areas of the topmost floor of the Avengers compound, the place she'd called home for most of her recent life.

Natasha merely smiled quietly at him, forgoing any questions of where they were and what he was doing there with her. Somehow she seemed to understand they were inside the Soul Stone and that this would be her last glimpse of the world of the living. "Did you do it?"

Bruce swallowed hard, his eyes gleaming with emotion at seeing her again. "Yes."

Her smile became a little brighter then, and she closed her eyes, knowing everything would be alright with the world now and that she'd finally wiped the red off her ledger. "It's okay," she said, opening her brilliant green eyes to look at him once more. "Let me go."

Bruce seemed like he'd wanted to argue the matter, but before he could even open his mouth to say anything, he was suddenly gone, as if he'd never been there in the first place. Natasha continued to smile and she closed her eyes, reveling in the feeling that she'd finished her last mission.

* * *

Suddenly Natasha was aware that she could feel something. Almost as if mere moments before she hadn't had a true form, as if she'd only been energy and thought yet now she knew she had a physical body. As she became aware of that, she noticed she seemed to be lying down on a solid surface, with something like water surrounding her. Before she could open her eyes and even question what was happening, her thoughts were focused on something warm that was enclosing her left hand. It was something big and comforting, something she'd felt many times before. Something that made her heart flutter and that made her entire being feel safe. Someone's _hand_, she realized suddenly as that hand squeezed hers tenderly.

"Natasha! Oh my God, it worked. Nat!"

"What?" She heard his voice and she frowned in thought as she felt herself being pulled up to a sitting position. As she opened her eyes, Natasha suddenly found herself looking into the blue eyes and smiling face of Steve Rogers.

"Oh no, oh no," she said, growing alarmed as she couldn't find any reason why Steve should be where she was. She hoped he hadn't pulled out the sacrificing hero card once more. That had been _her_ move, exactly so that she could keep everyone else safe. He was supposed to be safe! "What happened? Why are you here?"

"I came to save you," he said simply, still smiling brightly at her.

"No, no, no," she protested rather vehemently, if somewhat inanely. "What did Clint do? I was supposed to be dead!" Oh what had her idiot best friend done now? Had she dreamed how she'd jumped down to her death or that swift conversation with Bruce in the Soul Stone? Had none of that happened?

"You were," Steve's seriously spoken words stopped her in her downward spiral of thoughts and he then rushed to explain things to her. "Nat, we did it. Thanks to you, we got all the Infinity Stones and we got everyone back and Thanos is gone. Now we just need to go back to our present."

"What? Are you serious? But then how─?" So many thoughts and questions were running through her mind, she didn't quite know which one to articulate first.

"I'll explain later, I don't think we have a lot of time left. Here, let me put in the new time coordinates," Steve said, reaching for her wrist and altering the data in her time-traveling GPS bracelet.

She'd still been watching him input the new time in her device, her mouth hanging slightly open just thinking that he was here with her when suddenly they were travelling through the quantum realm and emerging on top of what seemed like a newly built time machine in a wooded area. She barely had any time to look at her surroundings before Steve's arms were tightly wrapped around her.

"What the hell?!" She heard Sam exclaim, somewhere down below them and to her left.

"It worked," Steve laughed, holding her even closer to him as he lifted her up and twirled her around. "It really worked!"

As he released her and jumped down from the raised platform, Natasha noticed Bruce staring at her and Bucky and Sam looking with confusion from her to Tony and Vision, who had been lying on the ground next to the time machine.

"What the hell did you do?" Bruce asked then, dragging his eyes away from Natasha and looking down at Steve.

"I used the Soul Stone to bring them back," Steve explained, as Tony and Vision now stood beside him on the ground.

She was still fairly reeling, trying to take in her surroundings and listen to Steve's explanations and the others' exclamations at same time. She realized they were in the woods that surrounded the Avengers facility, yet looking over her shoulder she saw the place seemed to be under heavy reconstruction. What the hell had happened here?

Her attention was brought back to Steve once she heard him say he'd traded the Soul Stone for her. "You did all that without knowing if that wouldn't kill you in the process?" She asked him then, jumping down from the platform to stand next to him.

"The thought did cross my mind, but I didn't think too much about it." He admitted, looking down at her with a quiet smile.

She blinked up at him, feeling her mouth hanging slightly open once more. She felt something flutter and twist in her chest as she thought of what he'd done to bring all three of them back, but especially to bring _her_ back. But before she could even think or say anything about that, Tony was up in Steve's face about the consequences of messing with time and they'd segued into a discussion of how Vision came to be there with them.

Once Vision had hugged Steve, they all seemed to realize just how amazing it was that they were all there and several more hugs abounded all around them.

"Oh I'm glad you're back," Tony said, the first one to pull her into a fierce hug, a move she hadn't been expecting just then.

"Right back at ya," she said, feeling a little breathless. She was still trying to understand everything that had happened, but from what she'd caught so far it looked like Tony had been just as dead as she was.

Sam then quickly summoned a Quinjet to take them over to Tony's country house, where they reunited with Pepper, Morgan, Rhodey and Happy. Afterwards, they sent out word to their friends of what had happened and several others joined in the impromptu reunion.

Natasha found herself engulfed by the Barton kids as soon as they touched down, and she looked at Clint with tears gleaming in her eyes. He held onto Laura as he swallowed hard and merely nodded at her for a moment. She smiled and nodded back at him. The kids disengaged from her as Laura approached and pulled her into a tight hug.

"Thank you," Laura whispered in her ear. "Clint told me what you did and why you did it. But you know, I don't think he's forgiven you yet."

"It's okay," Natasha replied evenly. "I can live with that."

"You'd better," Clint said, as he stepped up and enveloped her in a bone-crushing hug as soon as his wife let go of his best friend. "God, I missed you. And don't you ever try pulling something like that on me again."

"I missed you, too, you big idiot," she smirked affectionately at him, sidestepping his last phrase because truth be told if she ever had to make the same choice again, she would, in a heartbeat.

Tony's house was soon filled with so many people and they were all laughing joyously and almost carelessly, retelling tales of the battle against Thanos, especially to Natasha and Vision, who'd missed the whole thing. She listened, enthralled, as Tony talked about Steve taking Thor's hammer and summoning lightning and Pepper telling how Wanda had almost single-handedly taken down Thanos on a moment there and Peter talking excitedly about meeting Carol Danvers and how she and the other battling ladies had banded together and taken down a great portion of Thanos's army all by themselves.

A while later, Natasha left the main group in the living room and walked into the kitchen to get a glass of water. They'd all been talking and laughing so much and for so many hours now that she felt quite parched. As she poured herself a glass and drank it down, she turned around and found herself face to face with Bruce.

"Hey," she said, smiling at him.

"Hey Nat," he said, also smiling slightly at her, though his smile seemed just a little pained. "Listen, I've been meaning to ask you… I'm not sure if you remember this. Hell, I'm not even sure if that really happened in the first place─"

"I remember," she said, cutting him off with a nod. "I remember talking to you, in the Soul Stone."

"So that's where we were?" He raised his eyebrows at her. "I wasn't sure that had really happened. I didn't even tell anyone. It was just after I'd reversed the Snap, and it was over so fast. I was looking at you and talking to you, then suddenly I was on the floor looking up at Tony and we were being attacked by Thanos."

"I know," she said, smiling up at him. "Thank you, for finding me and telling me then. I… I was really glad to know it had all worked out."

"Yeah," he said, swallowing hard as he paused for a moment. "Listen, I really tried. When I saw you, I wished and I tried so hard to get you back to life, but─"

"I know you did," she said, stepping up and placing a placating hand on his arm. "It's okay, Bruce." Natasha pulled him into a hug, smiling up at him and he tentatively placed his uninjured arm around her. Even though it'd been a long time since he'd grown into his new form, he still tried to be extra careful with his strength around others.

"I'm glad Cap figured things out and got you back," Bruce said, letting go of her and stepping back to give her some space.

"Yeah, me too," she smiled at that.

As he turned and rejoined the others at the living room, she stood for a moment looking around, searching for the face with those familiar blue eyes, but coming up empty. It had been a while now since she'd last seen Steve and she hadn't actually gotten to talking to him all that much since they'd arrived at the Stark estate.

"Hey, Sam," she called out to him as he joined her in the kitchen. "Have you seen Steve? I can't seem to find him."

"Yeah, he's at the back porch," Sam told her, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the direction he'd just come from. "We were just out getting some air and talking."

"Oh thanks," she said lightly, turning to go that way, then she narrowed her eyes at him at the smirk he was suddenly giving her. Sam merely raised his hands in a peaceful gesture, but she rolled her eyes at the wink he gave her before he turned and went towards the living room.

As she walked out to the back porch, Natasha found Steve sitting outside by the steps just as Sam had told her. "Hey, there you are. I've been looking all over for you." She joined him, sitting down next to him, hugging her knees up to her chest.

"Oh yeah?" He turned to her with a smile.

They hadn't had a chance to talk by themselves since they'd come out on top of the time machine so many hours before. The whole time she'd felt her eyes unconsciously following him, but sitting up close to him now she couldn't help but pause for a moment to take in his features. She'd thought she would never see him again. "I don't think I got to actually thank you yet, for what you did."

Still with a smile, he shook his head slightly at her. "You would've done the same thing," he said dismissively, just as she'd expected him to.

"Still," she insisted, shrugging her shoulders and reaching down to take his right hand in her left one. "Thank you, Steve."

She felt him squeeze her hand in response and a myriad of emotions seemed to course through her body in a mere few seconds. She remembered how his hand had felt in her when she'd woken up in Vormir, how she'd felt so safe by this simple contact. Her mind also seemed to flash to the last thought she'd had before dying, and to avoid thinking further of that, she laughed quietly and said, "I can't believe you managed to use two Infinity Stones on your own. And what's this I hear about you using Thor's hammer? I wonder what finally made you worthy." She raised an eyebrow as she teased him, easily falling back into familiar territory.

"I did it for you," Steve said, and she widened her eyes and felt her breath hitching in her throat at his words. "I did it all for you. When we were fighting Thanos, I just couldn't let him win while thinking you'd sacrificed yourself so that we could do this. I thought of you and then the hammer was just flying to my hand."

"Steve…" She heard herself whisper back at him, feeling tears prickling at her eyes as she struggled to maintain a semblance of control of her emotions. What was he saying? Was he implying that thinking of her had made him… _worthy_?

"And I couldn't see myself living in any version of a future without you in it, Nat. You're my partner," he kept on saying, barely pausing to give her time to process what he'd said before following up with more words that stole her breath away. He then swallowed hard, as he also seemed to struggle with his emotions.

"I know," she smiled at him, blinking her eyes rapidly to keep her tears at bay. She was trying to put some order in her thoughts and all the things she wanted to tell him when once more he beat her to the punch.

"I love you, you know? I think I'm _in love_ with you," Steve said, looking deeply into her eyes. "I don't know when it happened. Maybe I've always been in love with you and I was just afraid to admit it."

Natasha stared back at him, completely thrown by his sudden declaration. In all of their years together, they'd never used the word love. They called each other friends and she knew they cared deeply for one another and she also knew that what she felt for him was different than what she felt for the rest of her friends. But she'd never dreamed he would be here actually telling her these words.

She decided to stop thinking and let go, her body taking over and reacting on its own, as she leaned closer to him, a memory of a different time and a different place when they'd done this before slipping into her mind before her lips captured his. He brought her closer to him, his hand pulling at her waist and suddenly she was nearly sitting on his lap, his other hand weaving gently through her hair as she bit down on his lower lip and opened her mouth to taste him and oh it felt like heaven. She felt herself getting lost and drunk in the feeling of Steve.

"Okay, wait," she reluctantly broke the kiss, keeping him close and pressing their foreheads together. "Let's not get carried away here. You literally just brought me back from the dead and all." She felt him nod against her as they took deep breaths. "Are you sure about this?"

"Yes," he answered instantly. She frowned in thought at him, and he seemed to feel this as he pulled away to look her in the eye. "Nat, I was going to ask you out on a date before Scott showed up at the front door of the compound and we got into all that mess."

"You were?" She smiled at him, as she thought back to that conversation. How he'd talked about moving on and how they'd both needed to get a life. So _that_ was what he'd been going on about?

"Yeah," he laughed a little in reply. "What would you have said?" He suddenly looked bashful and expectant as he asked her that.

"Depends," she couldn't help toying with him a little. "Where would you take me?"

"Anywhere you'd like," he answered her gamely with a bright smile. "I have a few places in mind, but I'm not sure any of them are open right now."

"You can take me some other time," she smiled at him, and she had not a doubt in her mind that he would love to take her out on dates. She had a feeling she'd love to let him take her out to all sorts of places as well. "Right now there's nowhere else I'd rather be."

That seemed to be all he needed to hear to capture her lips once more, the two of them getting wrapped up in each other's arms and reveling in the wonderful feelings coursing through them as they couldn't get enough of each other. "Actually, you _could_ take me back to your place in Brooklyn," she murmured the words against his lips, as she thought the back porch of Tony Stark's home was probably not the best place for them to engage in some heavy making out.

"Humm, that's a good idea," Steve murmured his agreement against her lips. "It looks like you'll be out of a home for a while until the Avengers compound is reconstructed."

As they kissed each other senseless, she thought of how sitting here in Steve's arms and feeling so loved felt like a final piece of the puzzle coming into place. "Steve?" She said, her voice feeling small even to her own ears, but she wanted to be brave and tell him the actual words. "I love you, too."

His bright smile was all she'd needed in reply to that, a warm feeling spreading throughout her body like she'd finally found her place in the world.

* * *

A.N.: Thank you so much for all the reviews and the response I've gotten for this little story. I started this whole thing mostly to appease myself, yet I don't think I've ever felt prouder of anything I wrote down, and knowing so many people appreciate it as well has been quite the unparalleled joy. Endgame is still stirring so many feelings in me and I might write more things about this, but I'm still keeping the story marked as completed as it could stand just as it is. Oh and no one's going to be able to convince me that Nat didn't manipulate all of them so that she would be the one to sacrifice herself for the Soul Stone. She knew what she was doing the moment she set out for Vormir and the Soul Stone.


	3. A Messy Little Family Affair

**Disclaimer:** The Avengers, its characters and The Marvel Cinematic Universe belong to Marvel Studios and The Walt Disney Company, among many others. I'm only a fan, writing this for love of this film franchise and personal pleasure.

A.N.: I missed the lighter side of the Avengers and I started writing this before I knew what was happening. I'm enjoying myself enormously with this story so far, so there should be a couple more chapters coming up.

* * *

**Lights Will Guide You Home**

"Hey Steve, I was wond─"

Tony abruptly stopped talking as he'd opened the door to the back porch of his house and stumbled upon the scene of Steve and Natasha sitting on the steps leading down towards the lake, seemingly occupied in a full-on make-out session. The couple then stopped kissing and disengaged their lips from one another as they turned to look up at their would-be-gracious host. "Oh, I'm sorry!" Tony exclaimed, a sly grin forming on his lips and his tone of voice conveying he was anything but sorry. "I guess I should've knocked. Even though this is the door leading _out_ to my backyard." He gestured at said door, pulling it shut behind him as he walked out fully onto the porch.

Natasha merely raised an eyebrow at him, her lips twitching for a moment before she hid a smile by pursing her lips into a serious line. Despite his best efforts, a violent blush was creeping up on Steve's neck and face as he turned to look at him over his shoulder. "What is it, Tony?" He said, trying to affect a serious and commanding tone of voice worthy of Captain America. The effect was mostly lost as his face was burning bright with embarrassment and he had his hands around Natasha's waist and she was still quite unceremoniously sitting on his lap, her knees straddling his hips.

"Oh no, never mind me," Tony said with a dismissive hand gesture, his eyes sparkling as if Christmas had come earlier this year. "We can talk shop tomorrow. You kids go back to whatever you were doing before I so rudely interrupted you."

"No, Tony─"

"Go on, carry away!" Tony talked over his feeble protests, thoroughly enjoying himself watching Steve squirm in mortification. "I'd also want to do some celebrating if I'd just come back from the dead. Oh wait! I did just come back from the dead!"

"That's not─"

"You know, I'd offer you the guest bedroom, but we already got a pretty full house and we have impressionable kids over, plus I'm not sure the walls are thick enough─"

"For Christ's sake, Tony!─"

"Relax, Capsicle! If you get any redder you might start melting away." Tony was still grinning at the couple, leaning his shoulder against the wooden column and he'd been about to add a rather crass innuendo involving melting when another voice interrupted him.

"Tony," Natasha said quietly in that husky and deceptively calm tone of voice of hers with an undercurrent of danger that they knew so well. "I'd hate to inflict bodily harm on you on the same day we both came back from the dead, as you just noted."

"Erm, right." Tony said then, promptly shutting up and losing the smile. Riling up Steve was fun, but not at the expense of threats of bodily harm by Natasha. Even after going through the jarring experience of getting killed and coming back to life, he had no doubt that the Black Widow had ways to make him sorrier than he'd ever been if he kept this up.

"Now what is it that you wanted?" She asked with a little self-satisfied smile. It was good to know she could still put the fear on the Stark genius/billionaire/playboy/philanthropist after all these years, even in her current rather compromised position sitting on Captain America's lap.

"Oh nothing much, just dot some Is and cross some Ts about this whole resurrection thing and what we should release to the public and other whatnot," Tony replied nonchalantly, as if this were the sort of topic they were used to discussing on a daily basis. Which, as strange it sounded, was becoming quite the norm in their lives, right next to alien invasions, time heists and emails from a racoon in space.

"Okay, we'll be in there in a moment," she nodded back at him.

"Appreciated." He raised his eyebrows at them, then turned around and went back into his house.

As the door closed and they were once more alone on the porch, Steve and Natasha turned to face each other. Still wrapped in each other's arms, they paused for a moment and then simply burst out into laughter.

"Oh God," Steve said, laughter still bubbling up in his chest as he shook his head slightly to himself.

"Well, I guess the cat's out of _that_ bag," Natasha smirked at him as her own laughter quieted down.

"What, were you planning on keeping me a secret?" He raised a teasing eyebrow back at her, a smile still tugging at his lips.

"No, but it would've been nicer if people actually found out about it through us and not Tony's big mouth and whatever lewd version of events he's about to tell them," Natasha rolled her eyes a little in explanation.

"You really think he's going to tell everyone?" Steve furrowed his eyebrows a little, sounding doubtful.

Suddenly, as if on cue, they could hear Tony's loud voice coming from inside the house. _"Guys, you are __**not**__ going to believe this!"_

Steve's only reaction to this was to groan, slump over and rest his forehead on Natasha's shoulder. "I guess that answers your question," she said with laughter in her voice once more. "Are you ready to go in and face the music?"

"Yeah, just…" He took a deep breath in and out before adding, "give me a minute here."

"I see," she noted, and now she was the one with a decidedly sly grin on her lips. "Did I make you uncomfortable?"

"Once again, that's not the word I'd use," he murmured against her neck, a smile also tugging at the corners of his lips at the memory of another time almost ten years ago when they'd had a similar conversation.

Natasha slid her hands up until they were cupping his face and she brought his head up so she could look him in the eye before she leaned forward and captured his lips with her own. He sighed against her lips and kissed her back, his arms holding her tightly to him yet after a moment he let out a sort of frustrated groan as he broke the kiss. "_Not_ helping, Nat."

"Sorry," she chuckled back at him, unable to resist as she kissed him softly on the lips one last time before she leaned back away from him and slid off his lap, sitting down on the step next to him once more.

Steve grabbed her left hand in his right one, looking over at her with a smile. "So how do you want to handle this?"

"What do you mean?" She raised an amused eyebrow at him.

"Well, what do you want to tell everyone once we get in through that door?" He elaborated, a light blush visible on his cheeks as he gestured with his head at the door behind them.

"I think Tony just saved us of the trouble of actually telling anything," she smirked back at him.

Natasha loved to tease him, but she knew what Steve was getting at. Honestly she would've preferred if they had gotten to pace themselves with their evolving relationship without adding anyone else from their extended family to the situation first. But then life rarely took them down the easy path.

She supposed it _was_ their fault for getting carried away and making out like the teenagers they'd never gotten to be right on Tony's porch. But give her a break, she'd just been brought back to life by the guy she'd had a secret, repressed crush on for the better part of the last decade who then suddenly told her he was in love with her. What else was she supposed to do?

"Seriously, I don't think we need to say anything," Natasha finally said, shrugging her shoulders casually.

"Really?" Steve raised a doubtful eyebrow at her.

"I don't think anyone is going to care that much. I mean, no one even batted an eye when Wanda and Vision got together, and we'd just been fresh from an internal battle that broke up the Avengers, not to mention the fact that they were on opposite sides of that fight and then she was on the run with us from nearly every law enforcement agency and government in the world," she explained her train of thought.

"Uh, if I remember correctly, _you_ batted an eye at that," Steve countered with a teasing smile.

She'd done way more than bat an eye, actually. Natasha had nearly gone ballistic when they'd found out what exactly Wanda had been doing when she first disappeared for days all of a sudden. Then she'd practically sat the girl down for a lecture on the rules of safety while being on the run and the perils of getting involved with former teammates who were bound by the law to turn them in, until the Scarlet Witch had managed to assure and convince them that Vision would never put her or any of them in danger, so they all came up with an agreement so that the couple could continue seeing each other from time to time.

Even if Steve was teasing her about it now, back then he'd been extremely grateful that Natasha had been the one to address that situation. He would've felt incredibly uncomfortable discussing his teammates' private lives and any romantic developments that came along. He still had no idea whatever had possessed him to talk to Bruce about Natasha way back then, as that had been so unlike him. Somehow he had a feeling their friends would have no such qualms about discussing his and Natasha's private affairs now that Tony had outed them.

"Well, can you blame me?" She conceded readily enough to his teasing comment, raising an eyebrow pointedly in reply.

"Fair enough," he chuckled lightly in response. "But back to us… So we're together, then?" Steve asked, looking at her with a rather boyish grin. He'd been running high on his emotions practically all day, going on that mission back in time then deviating from his carefully arranged plans to risk everything on the off chance he could get back everyone they'd lost, and especially now since he'd confessed that he was in love with her and she'd kissed him, so he believed it was best if he followed her lead on what to do about all of this.

"We are," she confirmed with one of her smirks. "Aren't we?" Then she marginally narrowed her eyes at him as she thought about it.

"Yes, we are," he said at once, leaning over and giving her a quick, reassuring kiss. "If you think that's what we should tell them, I'm good with that."

"Well, a part of me wants to say this is none of their business," Natasha added with something of a rueful smile. "But then I _am_ the one who called them my family, so I guess I owe them something. I don't know, let's just see how it goes. How about it?" She suggested with a casual shrug.

"Okay, I guess we'll just play it by ear, then," he agreed, getting up to his feet, still holding her hand and helping her up as well. She nodded curtly in agreement and they turned to go back into the house.

As they walked in, Steve lightly squeezed Natasha's hand before letting it go, as he didn't think they were quite ready for such a couple gesture in front of everyone yet and she smiled back appreciatively at him. Once they stepped into the living room, all conversation stopped and they saw all the adults were gathered there, as the Barton kids had been put to sleep in Morgan's room a little while back and Peter and May Parker were taken back to their apartment in Queens by Happy. The two of them noticed how Tony was standing next to them and still grinning and everyone else was just staring silently at them, some of them with raised eyebrows, others with soft frowns on their brows and a few with curious smiles.

Steve gulped down uncomfortably as no one said anything and just continued looking rather expectantly at the two of them. Natasha noticed this, without even needing to look at him, so she rolled her eyes and sighed a little. "Fine. _Yes_, Steve and I are together now. Get used to it already and stop staring." She punctuated her final words by crossing her arms and glaring sternly at them all.

"I told ya," Tony turned with his triumphant grin back to the others and a sweeping gesture of the hand at the couple, as if he were presenting a piece of evidence in a courtroom.

"Ha! I _knew_ it," Clint suddenly exclaimed and banged his hand on the coffee table, startling a few people around him, then he broke out into a grin as well and turned to his wife. "Pay up, I called it."

Laura just smiled and shook her head a little, as she reached into her pocket and handed her husband a twenty. Steve and Natasha then watched rather dumbfounded as Tony handed some money over to Pepper, who merely smiled back then waggled her eyebrows up at her husband, and Rhodey also exchanged money with Sam, who had a very self-satisfied smile on his face as he pocketed the bill.

"You owe me." Wanda was sitting on Vision's lap as they occupied an armchair together and she turned to face him with a smile.

"I'll pay you later," the android in human guise said with an amused raised eyebrow. "It really wasn't my best idea to wager against someone who can read minds."

"I didn't need to read minds to figure this out, I only needed eyes," Wanda answered with a teasing smile.

"Are you all serious with the betting now?" Steve demanded as he put his hands on his hips, shifted his weight onto his right foot and raised an incredulous eyebrow at the room at large.

"Hell, _yeah_," Sam exclaimed excitedly as he got up from his seat and approached the two of them. "I've been waiting for this to happen for _years _now."

"You what?" Steve was a little thrown at this, as he blinked his eyes at him.

"Actually, when I first met you two I thought you were already together, so," Sam said with a shrug and a tilt of the head as he clapped Steve on his shoulder. "Yeah, it's been a long way coming, dude."

"You people are ridiculous." Natasha shook her head then, but a smile was threatening to pull up at the corners of her mouth.

"Oh yeah, _we're_ ridiculous," Clint scoffed sarcastically and rolled his eyes at her. "We're not the ones who have been flirting and playing house together for the better part of the last _decade_ without making any actual move on each other."

"What?" Steve frowned in confusion at this. "There was nothing going on," he objected at Clint's accusation, though the protest sounded rather feeble even to his own ears.

"Come on, Steve," Bucky then also got up and walked to him. "Even _I_ knew something was bound to happen between the two of you sooner or later, and I was either brainwashed or in the battlefield most of the time I was around you."

"See? I told you," Sam grinned at him.

"Okay, this discussion is over," Steve said in his gravely Captain America voice as he pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration and embarrassment. It did not bode well for him that Sam and Bucky had found common ground in ganging up on him to annoy him about his love life, again. It had already been bad enough how much they'd teased him about that one kiss with Sharon all those years ago.

"Oh no, don't you try to go all Captain on us just to get away from this," Tony said, his eyes sparkling with amusement as he pointed a waving finger at them. "How long has this been going on, huh? You two were sneaking around and keeping this from us?"

"There was _nothing_ going on," Steve repeated himself, removing his hand from his face and his voice growing louder with frustration at his friends' antics.

"Yeah, I find that hard to believe." Unexpectedly, it was Bruce who softly said that then and all eyes turned to him. He'd kept quiet so far and he had never voiced his opinions before, but he'd always found it especially weird that it was Steve who had pushed him to pursue a relationship with Natasha way back then. Seeing as he'd inadvertently gathered all the attention to himself, Bruce elaborated, "I mean, I also thought the two of you were together when you arrived at the compound with Wanda, Vision and Sam just before Thanos came along."

"Well, we weren't," Steve assured him, crossing his arms over his chest rather uncomfortably. He knew her short-lived romance with Bruce had been over a long time ago, but it was still extremely awkward to think he was discussing his newfound relationship with Natasha with her former love interest. All part of their messed up little family, he supposed.

For her part, Natasha didn't express any reaction to this, as she remained standing with her arms crossed and an impassive expression on her face. She was actually too shocked to react, years of training ingrained deep into her brain taking over and placing an unfeeling mask over her features without conscious thought. She knew Sam and Wanda had sometimes given her some teasing looks when they'd been on the run together with Steve, and Clint liked to annoy her about it from time to time ever since DC, but learning basically everyone had an opinion about the nature of her relationship with Steve was something else.

"Nope, I still don't buy it," Tony said, crossing his arms stubbornly and eyeing the two of them closely, as if he could spot the lies on their faces. (Steve, probably. Natasha, not so much.) "All that time living together, on the run and _nothing_? No slip ups? No crossing any lines there?"

"Come on Tony, give them a break," Pepper said, taking pity on the new couple and interjecting on their behalf, trying to rein in on her husband's caustic behavior.

"Yeah, you're not one to talk," Rhodey agreed, gesturing with a hand as he raised his eyebrows at his best friend. "All that time you danced around Pepper, remember _that_?"

"Hey, I had some very extenuating circumstances back then, like the fact that I was uh, what was that again? Oh yeah, _dying_ from palladium poisoning." Tony turned to him and rolled his eyes dramatically in response to the provocation. "Besides, it was six months. Not six _years_." He turned back to Steve and Natasha. "So you just expect me to believe that, what? After all those years and even with the Decimation, it took Natasha dying for you to finally realize you're madly in love with her and then you risked everything on a half-assed plan just to bring her back to life?"

Steve just threw his hands up in frustration as Tony kept pestering him about it. "Yes, as a matter of fact that's _exactly_… what happened." The final words slowly came out of his mouth as Steve realized just what he was saying. As everyone gaped at what he'd admitted, his blue eyes went wide and he turned with alarm to look down at Natasha and gauge her reaction to his unexpected outburst.

But he needn't have worried, for Natasha was only looking up at him with a small, affectionate smile. "It's a good thing you were never captured and tortured, Rogers, 'cause boy would you crack easily under interrogation," she drawled out and smirked up at him, her green eyes sparkling with amusement as she put her hand tenderly on his arm.

He merely smiled down at her, relieved that she wasn't somehow upset with what he'd just unintentionally confessed to in front of nearly all their friends and family.

"Alright then," Tony said, grinning in satisfaction as he'd finally gotten what he'd wanted. "So, when's the wedding?"

Steve and Natasha rolled their eyes and turned in unison to look at him with identical glares, as she once more crossed her arms and he placed his hands on his hips in exasperation.

"Tony," Pepper sighed at him, both a rather useless warning and a well-known, long-suffering sound that usually accompanied her husband's shenanigans.

"What?" He countered, turning to her as he blinked his eyes innocently, if that was even possible for Tony Stark. "I think I have the right to know, considering they were practically using our back porch as a honeymoon suite."

"Okay, that's it," Natasha said, narrowing her eyes at him as she suddenly and swiftly advanced on him. "You're dead, Stark."

"Oh shit. Hey now. Cap! Control your woman!" Tony exclaimed in alarm, as he dodged her and made a quick getaway, Natasha hot in pursuit, the two of them suddenly running around the house like children and heading outside through the side door.

"I'm not getting into that," Steve shook his head, bringing one hand up to his temple. "And you're crazy if you think I could ever control her!" He called after him as a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

"Well, less than 24 hours before he was back in mortal peril," Pepper quipped, making a show of looking at her wristwatch as she got up to her feet, the others all laughing softly at that. "Let's see if I can persuade Natasha to let me keep my husband alive for a little while longer." She then reached out and pulled Steve into a hug. He was a little surprised at this but wrapped his arms around her all the same. "I'm glad you found each other. I was always rooting for you," Pepper told him, gave him a kiss on the cheek and then let him go, leisurely walking towards the door.

"I'll help," Clint chuckled as he got up and followed her. "Seriously Cap, I'm happy for the two of you," he commented as he clapped a hand on his shoulder on his way after Pepper, and Steve only smiled appreciatively back at him.

Meanwhile, Tony and Natasha had dashed outside and they had just jumped down the steps leading to the driveway when she'd quickly caught up to him, grabbing him by the arm. Tony grabbed her arm back and used their momentum to pull her in the opposite direction. Instead of resisting, Natasha flowed into the movement and for one bizarre moment it almost looked like they were dancing. Then she smirked and aimed a punch at him. He was slightly taken aback by this, but still managed to block her. Then he smirked and parried back with her, throwing in his own punches and kicks, but she was too fast and nimble on her feet, blocking and dancing around him as she dodged him until she managed to get the upper hand by pushing herself up on his thigh, swinging up on his shoulders and wrapping her legs around his neck, throwing all her weight back and taking them both down to the ground. She did soften his fall to the ground a little by keeping her hold on him, but once they were down, she rolled them over, twisted his arm over his back and pressed one knee down on the small of his back.

"Ow, ow, ow! Okay, you win! I'm sorry, alright?" He cried out, his voice somewhat muffled from having his face pressed against the grass.

"God, you're just crap without your suit," she chuckled quietly, releasing him and getting up to her feet in one fluid motion, then she stepped around him and offered her hand to help him up. "Maybe it's really time for you to retire."

"Yeah, well I wasn't expecting you to actually chase me around my house right now and then get into a fistfight," he mumbled as he took her hand and got up to his feet, dusting his pants with his hands. "Besides, give me a break. I just got back to life."

"We both did yet I can still kick your ass," she smirked in amusement at him. "You're going to keep using that excuse forever now, aren't you?"

"Oh you know it," he admitted with a smile of his own and as he turned to her, the look in his eyes became softer. "You know, all joking aside, I'm very happy for you. Both of you. I always thought you and Cap were good for each other." Then he raised a rather sardonic eyebrow. "I just never thought either of you would actually do anything about it, but this is one instance I can wholeheartedly admit I'm glad I was wrong."

"Thanks, Tony," she said, her own smirk softening into a genuine smile. "Well, this was fun."

"You know what? It was," he agreed, his eyes sparkling mischievously for a moment before he grew serious. "How are you feeling? I know I'm still having trouble believing this is all real."

She felt the shift in his tone and knew this wasn't about her and Steve anymore. For a moment, Natasha felt conflicted about what to tell him. This was Tony; they pushed each other's buttons and drove each other crazy half the time. But he'd also been her first link to this family, other than Clint, back when they used to be such different people than the ones standing there right now. She had only been a spy working for SHIELD, still keeping everyone out, as it'd been the only way she knew how to survive. And so had he, in his own way, keeping safe inside his suit and keeping others at arm's length. Now they were Avengers with families to protect.

And he seemed to be genuinely concerned about her, both being able to share a moment of honesty now that it was just the two of them. He was also the one person who could fully relate to this harrowing experience of actually dying─as opposed to being dusted by Thanos─and coming back to life (besides Vision; maybe they should create a support group for the resurrected?). She had a feeling they would have a lot of these conversations moving forward.

"I know. I'm─I'm afraid I'm going to wake up and either find out we're still living with the Decimation or that I'm inside the Soul Stone and this is just some delusional dream I created for myself," she admitted, her voice getting smaller with each word, her green eyes shining with emotion.

Tony reached out and gave her arm a tender squeeze. "I got you, Red." Then he pulled her to him and the two shared a tight hug, content to give each other some measure of comfort at least for a moment, thinking of all they'd been through together since they'd met some thirteen years ago.

That was how Pepper and Clint found them, as they stood on the porch just by the front steps of the house. "Is this a new form of torture I haven't heard of?" Clint quipped, leaning his hand against the railing and smiling down at them.

"Watch it or I might give you the same treatment, Barton," Natasha called out as she smirked up at him, then she and Tony let go of each other.

"Well, I for one am glad you're not actually killing my husband, especially since I just got him back," Pepper said good-naturedly, but her words only made Natasha blanch.

"Oh my God, Pepper," she said hurriedly. "I'm so sorry, I didn't even think of what I was saying─"

"It's okay," Pepper waved her concerns away with a careless hand gesture and a small smile. She knew Natasha hadn't meant any harm and that it wasn't her fault, as she hadn't been there with them for that battle and the week leading up to the funeral and all the pain they'd been through. "Besides, it's his own fault. He was being very obnoxious." She added, her eyes sparkling mischievously at her husband.

"Hey! You're supposed to be on my team," Tony protested with a slight frown as he and Natasha made their way up the steps to join them.

"I _am_ on your team," Pepper countered at once, giving an easy smile as she raised her eyebrows at him. "It doesn't mean I'm always going to agree with everything you do or say."

"I expect most of the time you wouldn't," Clint commented offhandedly.

"True," Tony acquiesced readily with a raised eyebrow, putting his arm around Pepper and the four of them made their way back into the house.

"So now that this is all done, shall we get back to business?" Natasha offered, remembering why Tony had walked in on her and Steve in the first place.

"I think it's getting late for that," Pepper said with a slight frown. "Why don't we all get ready for bed and we pick this up in the morning?"

"Aw I wanted to pitch them my idea of a new religion: Starkism," Tony pouted, then made a gesture with his hand in the air as if seeing the word written there as he pushed the side door open and they walked into the house.

"Please tell me you're joking." Natasha stared back at him, raising a slightly worried eyebrow at him.

"Come on! Think about it. I'm already famous, people are used to worshipping me, I've already saved the world a handful of times and now I helped bring half the universe back to life, sacrificing myself for that _and_ I miraculously got back to life," Tony argued good-humoredly. "All the items of the start-your-own-religion start-up pack."

"I obviously only caught the tail end of that discussion there, but please, _please_ tell me you're joking," Rhodey said, also staring worriedly at his best friend.

"Yes, of course I'm joking. I don't want to start my own religion," Tony said with a slight roll of the eyes, and there were several sighs of relief throughout the room. "_But_ that is not to say some nuthead out there is not going to follow through with that and start a following. It was already bad enough when I was only Tony Stark, then things got a little crazy when I became Iron Man and we formed the Avengers."

"He's not wrong," Pepper commented, worrying her lower lip for a moment. "Stark Tower and then the Avengers Tower always needed security 24/7 to keep the fans away from the entrances. It was one of the reasons we turned one of the old Stark Industries storage units into the new Avengers facility upstate, in a less accessible location."

"You see? That's why I'm worried about what we should release to the public regarding this little resurrection thing," Tony added. "I don't want any of that crazy life anymore. I just want to stay here, with my family, leading a quiet life away from the spotlight."

"So what? Do you want to keep the fact that you're alive again a secret?" Steve asked him, as he frowned slightly.

"Well, _that_ is a thought," Tony said quietly after a moment.

"Hold on. While I'm glad you're considering retiring, _again_, I also want Morgan to lead a normal life," Pepper countered. "She can't exactly do that if she can't tell people her father is still alive. Besides many, many, _many_ other issues here."

"We might want to get Fury's input on this," Natasha offered. "He has experience with this sort of thing."

"Yeah, but he didn't actually die and come back to life," Sam pointed out. "He just made people _think_ he'd died to stop the assassination attempts on him." Then he actually threw a smirk at Bucky, who groaned and hid his face in his hands, prompting Steve to place a comforting hand on his shoulder and aim a glare at Sam, who merely raised his hands in an apologetic gesture, but kept his smirk on his lips anyway.

"To the public at large, same difference," Natasha argued with a simple shrug. "We could come up with a reason to justify releasing to the public a version of events that led to Tony's death while, for instance, people handled the threat of possible retaliation from any of Thanos's followers after the battle."

"But there are no more of Thanos's followers left," Tony raised an eyebrow at her. "I made sure of that."

"Okay, but the world doesn't know that," Natasha continued with her train of thought. "If you don't want people actually knowing you died and came back to life due to some impossible, magical miracle that would throw your life into public chaos, then this is what we could do. We say we spread the word of your death for your protection in fear of retaliation in the aftermath of the battle, and now the threats have been neutralized and we're back to normal. Anyone else who knows the truth would back this up."

"What about you?" Wanda asked her then. "Are you going to say the same about what happened to you?"

"Me? People don't care that I died," she shrugged her shoulders carelessly.

"Uh, I beg to differ, and I think Cap would be offended at that," Clint pointed out at once.

"That's not what I mean," Natasha grimaced slightly at her thoughtless choice of words, giving Clint and Steve an apologetic look. "You know that. The _public_ doesn't care as much about my death and subsequent resurrection as they would about Iron Man."

"Actually, you would be surprised at how much the popularity of Black Widow has risen since the battle against Thanos," Laura said, looking for something in her cell phone to show Natasha. "Word got out that you sacrificed yourself to bring the universe back to life and they're singing your praises on the internet. You're a hero, Nat!"

"What?" Natasha raised her eyebrows and walked over to Laura to look at her cell phone. "How the hell did word even get out that I sacrificed my life for the Soul Stone? What is this about an 'unnamed source' slipping that up to news outlets?" She then turned to glare askance at basically the entire room.

"My guess?" Sam offered, raising his hand to draw attention to himself. "Scott." There was a collective reaction of rolling eyes and concurring nods around the room.

"Ugh so much for people in the know backing us up," Natasha muttered, frowning in thought at this added complication to her situation. "Or keeping their damn mouths shut."

"That's what we get for hiring freelancers," Tony quipped with a smirk. "Didn't anyone remember to give him the confidentiality agreement to sign?"

"Yeah, right after we took pictures for his badge and gave him the brochure for the Avengers employee benefits package," Bruce deadpanned back at him. "What the hell are you talking about? We were running a nearly impossible mission to save the universe!" Several people chuckled at that and Tony kept his smirk and merely waggled his eyebrows and tilted his head, silently conceding to his point.

"If that really was Scott, he probably meant no harm," Steve said in a placating tone, coming up behind Natasha and placing his hands comfortingly on her shoulders. "His heart was in the right place. He saw how impacted we all were when we lost you and wanted the world to know about your legacy."

"Yeah," she turned to give him a small smile over her shoulder. "But now I need to think of something to cover up my death and resurrection as well."

"Which brings us to the discussion I said was getting too late to get into right now," Pepper said, raising an eyebrow at them all. "How about we all just sleep on it and regroup in the morning to think this through? We could all use a little rest after the day we've had."

There were several murmurs of agreement. Even if this reverse-funeral of sorts had been a very happy occasion, it was getting close to the small hours late into the night and they all felt the effects of the long day, Steve more so than anyone thanks to his time-travels.

"Great idea, honey," Tony said brightly. "But that brings up another issue: lodgings. I don't think our humble abode can house everyone comfortably and several of these idiots got too drunk to drive."

"Not to mention that we didn't bring any cars over," Clint commented and rolled his eyes at him, as he was definitely one of those mentioned that were too impaired to use heavy machinery.

"You and Laura can take the guest bedroom," Pepper told him with a smile. She didn't want to awake their kids, seeing as they were already settled in Morgan's room. "As for everyone else, Stark Tower still has your rooms on the personal floors, as well as some guest rooms available. You could take one of the Quinjets and sleep over there, and we can meet you there in the morning and sort anything long term then."

"You kept our rooms even after all these years?" Natasha was surprised to hear this. They'd only resided at the short-lived Avengers Tower for a couple of years and afterwards they'd transferred over to the Avengers facility upstate. She knew Pepper still ran Stark Industries from the Tower, but she thought anything Avengers had come with them to the compound.

"It didn't feel right to just turn them into office space," Pepper offered the simple explanation with a shrug and a smile. "I know you took your personal belongings with you, but I kept all quarters furnished just as they were, with a few essentials stored away, just in case. I thought eventually it might be good for you guys to have a place in the city, if you ever needed it. And now you need it."

"I thought you said you'd gotten rid of everything, you know, after what happened with the Accords," Tony raised an eyebrow at her then. After he'd returned from Siberia, the first thing he'd done was send her orders to remove anything related to the Avengers that was still left at the tower. They'd still been navigating through their break back then and he took her assurances that she would take care of it at face value, so even when they got back together he never thought about it again until now.

"Yes, that's what I told you," she said easily. "But I knew better than to trust any rash decisions made in anger."

Tony felt something twist inside his chest in a rather painful yet good way as he looked at his wife. Even when they'd been broken up, Pepper had still known exactly what he'd needed even before he did. He was glad she knew him so damn well and continued to take care of him over all these years.

"Thank you, Pepper," Steve said then, giving her a small smile. He was still standing with his hands settled gently on Natasha's shoulders, and she could only nod at Pepper as her eyes seemed to glisten over with unshed tears. Out of everyone, Natasha had been the only one that still resided full-time at the Avengers compound, so she'd lost everything she had in the battle against Thanos. Her old quarters at the tower would at least be a familiar place to start over while the compound was reconstructed.

After saying their goodbyes to Tony, Pepper, Clint and Laura, the rest of the group piled up into one of the Quinjets and headed for New York City, with Steve acting as pilot, as he was practically the only sober person there. It was a rather short flight and they were soon touching down on the aerial pad.

"Welcome to Stark Tower," Bruce said as he led the way out of the Quinjet and guided the group. "I have full access at all hours, since I've been working and living here for the past five years." He punched his code into the security pad by the door, which promptly opened for him and he ushered them all in. "Steve, Nat? Do you remember your way around this place?"

"Yeah, I think we can manage," Natasha said and Steve nodded back at him.

"Good, then Rhodey and I will show these guys to the guest rooms," Bruce said, gesturing at the others with a thumb as he smiled at the two of them. "See you in the morning."

Taking the hint, Rhodey fell in step next to Bruce so that they could show Sam, Bucky, Wanda and Vision to the guest rooms and the group bid each other goodnight. As they were left alone in the living room of the common floor, Steve and Natasha turned to each other to talk privately for the first time since their moment at the porch.

"Look, I'm sorry for the way things happened back at Tony's house," Steve said, a light blush once more visible on his cheeks as he reached for Natasha's hands and intertwined his fingers with hers. "I wasn't thinking straight and things got out of hand…"

"Don't worry about it," Natasha reassured him quietly. "I don't regret one bit."

She stepped closer to him and pushed herself up on her toes, her hands going up to frame his face as she brought him down to capture his lips with her own. He responded immediately by pulling her flush against him and wrapping his arms around her smaller frame. "Shall we pick up where we left off?" She murmured against his lips.

"Hum, about that," Steve said, pulling a little away from her but still keeping her close to him and pressing his forehead gently to hers. "I know you're probably going to laugh at me or something, but I'm actually glad Tony interrupted us back there."

"You are?" She pulled away to take a better look at his face, as she raised an eyebrow in curiosity at him.

"Yeah, because I was getting too drunk on you, on _us_, to think straight," he admitted quietly, looking down into her eyes. "I want to do this right with you, Nat. I wanted us to actually go out on a date before… well, before anything else happens."

Natasha blinked up in surprise at this. She knew Steve had adapted greatly to the 21st century, but it looked like for some things he was still quite old-fashioned. It wasn't like they hadn't known each other for over a decade now or hadn't been friends and partners for all this time. But she supposed he was right. Being together would change things between them, and even if it was a most welcomed change, they should acknowledge it in some way. It was actually sweet and nothing less she'd expect of Steve Rogers.

"Okay," she said then, smiling up at him.

"Okay?" He was the one blinking down in surprise at her then.

"Yeah, okay," she said, pushing herself up on her toes to kiss him softly on the lips. "You're right. Let's do this 'the right way'. We've already waited a decade, apparently. What's the harm in waiting a couple of days? Besides, I haven't been on a date in…" She paused, furrowing her eyebrows in thought. "Actually, I can't remember the last time I was out on a real date, if ever."

"Well, Ms. Romanoff, then you'll be in for a treat," he smiled brightly down at her and couldn't resist kissing her again.

"I have one request, though," she said, raising an eyebrow at him, encircling her arms around his neck.

"Anything," he said at once.

"Stay with me tonight?" She looked up at him, her green eyes suddenly looking very big and vulnerable. "We don't have to─I just…" She paused, biting her lower lip for a moment. "I don't want to be alone."

"You won't," Steve told her softly, placing a gentle kiss on her forehead. He doubted he'd be able to let her go even if she hadn't asked him to stay.

Walking hand in hand to the elevators, they took one down to the personal floors and got out on the one to their quarters. Their apartments were situated on the same level, right across one another.

"Pepper said there should be essentials stored away," Steve said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the door to his quarters. "I'm going to look for some sleepwear in my old rooms and be right over."

"I'll do the same," she said with a small smile. "Don't take too long or I'll come looking for you."

"Roger that," he smiled back in acknowledgement.

A few minutes later, after cleaning up and getting changed into a comfortable pair of lounge pants and tee shirt, Steve walked across the hall and let himself into her apartment. After calling out for Natasha, she told him to come into the bedroom and that she would be right out.

He got to the bedroom and stood for a moment at the door, taking in the room. He'd never been here before, but it looked just the same as her old rooms in the Avengers compound, which he'd been more familiar with, as the two of them had spent a lot of time together running the team and their operations. He didn't know what to do with himself, so he decided to just cross his arms, lean his shoulder against the doorway and wait for her.

It wasn't long before the door to her en-suite bathroom got open and she stepped out into the room. Steve swallowed hard as he took in her appearance. Natasha would usually dress for bed similarly to how he was dressed, in simple lounge pants and tank tops, but right now she was wearing a matching pair of pajama top and shorts made in silk in a shade that matched the red of her hair and made him seriously reconsider this whole waiting to go out on a date thing that he'd insisted on.

"I have to say, Pepper has excellent taste," Natasha said casually, walking barefoot towards him and taking note of how he was openly staring at her. "What do you think?"

"Yeah, she, uh," Steve stammered incoherently, nearly swallowing his tongue as she came to stand right in front of him. "You look… great."

"You don't look so bad yourself," she replied, indulging herself while openly looking at him. She'd always covertly admired his physique, but it was quite liberating not having to be subtle about it, and the sight of Steve Rogers in casual wear in her bedroom was causing some very interesting flutterings that were spreading from the pit of her stomach out to her whole body. She noticed how he swallowed heavily once more and raised an eyebrow at him. "Nervous, soldier? It's not like we haven't done this before."

Steve made a conceding head gesture. Strictly speaking, they _had_ shared a bed before, out on a few missions and many times when they'd been together on the run, yet even if a wayward thought may have crossed his mind from time to time, they'd never crossed any lines before. "Yes, but you gotta admit this is an entirely new situation for us." He smiled down at her.

She reached out to him and with one hand she grasped one of his hands in her own and with the other she turned off the switch on the wall next to him, suddenly plunging the two of them into darkness. As their eyes adjusted to the dim light that came in through the partially closed curtains at the window, they just stood together for a moment before she tugged on his hand and led him backwards to the bed.

As they settled in, they laid down on their sides facing each other. Steve reached out to tuck a loose strand of her long hair behind her ear and she leaned into his touch, smiling at him. "Please tell me this isn't a dream," she whispered at him.

"I really hope it isn't," he whispered back at her then pulled her closer to him, nestling her in his arms and leaning down to kiss her gently. He internally struggled for a moment to keep it sweet and chaste, since having her in his arms and being able to hold her like this was doing some very funny things to his heart. Then he sighed against her lips and placed one final kiss on the corner of her mouth. "Goodnight, Nat. Sweet dreams…"

"Goodnight, Steve." Natasha smiled and buried her nose in the crook of his neck, inhaling his scent and closing her eyes. With her hand settled against his chest, she could feel his strong heartbeat under her palm and it was a while before her own wild heart slowed enough to get her to calm down and let herself be lulled into unconsciousness, but once she did it was probably the best sleep of her whole life.

* * *

A.N.: Yeah, I'm totally ignoring the fact that Tony sold the Avengers Tower in Spiderman: Homecoming for my own purposes. But then again, according to that movie the whole plot happens 8 years after The Avengers, making it in the year 2020, which does not fit in the MCU timeline, so… yeah. Let's say he converted the Avengers Tower back into Stark Tower for Pepper.


End file.
